A Bad Day

Andrew and I have this running joke. It starts with me waking up in a foul mood (I’m not a morning person), stretching my arms above me in a dramatic way, and saying, “Well. I’ve decided to take the day off.” Ha, ha. Right. SUCH a funny joke!

This is a joke, clearly, because there is no such thing as a day off when you are a parent. People told me this before I had kids, but I didn’t get it. Seriously. There is no way to get it until you are either sick as a dog and your baby wants something from you as you puke into a toilet for the umpteenth time or you have one of those days where you just decide you don’t feel like going to “work,” only there is no calling in sick or having a mental health day or whatever. And the ironic thing is, nobody needs a mental health day more than a parent.

Yesterday was a ridiculously rough day. But most of my days are not. Most of my days are pretty much tootsie rolls and sunshine with lollypop sprinkles. But this is real life, so not every day can be that great. Let me paint you a picture of the disaster that was Yesterday.

Emil was up all night with a pretty high fever, runny nose, cutting his first tooth, misery. Which means I was up too. Just setting the stage, people. Milo starts off in a pretty foul mood too, as he did not sleep well either. Getting over that nastiness that he had last weekend. Feeling well enough to go to school, but just nasty enough to whine and cry and complain. And Oliver, well he is as chipper as a clam, but feeling quite frisky and a little bit naughty.

The morning went okay while Milo was in preschool. The baby screamed the entire time, but I kind of expected that, so I just held him and nursed him as much as I could between taking Oliver to the bathroom numerous times (we are in the midst of potty training hell) and closing the front door which kept blowing open on its own. Once we fetched Milo from school, oh boy was I in over my head. It is a wonder these children survived in the face of my incompetence.

Both Milo and Oliver refused to eat anything substantial for lunch, so they were not allowed to watch a video. Some consequences suck for mom as much as for them, apparently. The baby screamed. Milo whined, then cried, then flew into full-fledged tantrum mode, which is not pretty for a four-and-a-half-year-old. My tolerance for this behavior coming from a child of his age is limited, so he went straight to bed, where he continued to scream and carry on.

Oliver kept almost pooping on the floor, then running to the potty to squeeze out an acorn-sized amount of poop and immediately wanting to get up and be done with it. Only, he of course was not done… but I cannot act frustrated, no I am SO EXCITED THAT YOU POOPED A MINUSCULE AMOUNT! YOU ARE AMAZING! … the baby is still screaming. The dog runs out the front door which has blown open yet again. I run down the street after her, catch her, and toss her into oncoming traffic return with her under my arm. Oliver is pants-less, running into the living room un-wiped. Milo is now upstairs kicking his wall and screaming to express his rage. The baby is screaming. Downstairs, the basement is filling up with another half-inch of dryer lint because the dryer vent hose keeps coming off the dryer in mid-cycle. But I won’t find this out for another half hour or so, so you know, so what. I am tripping over toys that are strewn all over the house, and the vacuum that I brought out because I meant to do that this morning along with… well, anything. I am starting to shake. Literally shake. I feel like I am about to enter into a psychotic episode. No joke. This must be the way someone feels right before they snap and do something really, really crazy.

The whole “take a break, shut yourself in the bathroom and count to ten” thing is not working. Because I’m pretty sure I have forgotten how to count. My left hand is trembling and I feel like screaming, so I do. And then I do it again. Oliver is yelling and carrying on from his crib because I failed to put him down for a nap using the usual routine of read, rock, and drink of water. All three boys are screaming, actually. I need to get the baby. I need to get ahold of myself.

And then it was over. The fiasco ended well enough. I scared my two-year-old with my crazy screaming, but he actually decided to take a nap. Plus I am no longer trembling, and I have nursed the baby back to sleep. Milo is lying quietly in his bed after I went in and soothed him, explaining that he is so grumpy because he is tired, and if he takes a good nap, I promise he can watch a video when he wakes up. I feel terrible. And now you know that I am all kinds of crazy.

It was a bad day. Today I will try again, to be better, to be patient, to be the adult. Wish me luck.