Everyone shorter than me is finally asleep. I just came back downstairs after cuddling each of my babies as they fell asleep in a last-ditch effort to save face after an afternoon of their tempers and emotional cups runneth over and my dwindling patience remained in desperate and obvious need of a refill.
The fact is, I’m tired. Like, really fucking tired. Clinically and chronically and feel-it-deep-down-in-my-bones kind of tired. Knox being such a shitty sleeper— for what feels more like my lifetime than his mere eighteen months of life— occasionally gets the best of me and today certainly qualified as one such occasion. As flattered as I am that my little Neadrethal thinks I’m super human and can do all of the things while using blinking as an opportunity for micro-naps, much to my (and my children’) dismay, it turns out that I’m human. No matter how hard I try to keep my bad attitude and simmering resentment in check, it’s not unheard of for the exhausted psychopathic ogre in me to take over control of my body turning me into an all-around mean-as-fuck mommy who ends up profusely apologizing to her poor kids during bedtime cuddle sessions.
Which brings me here. Sitting at this computer, drinking hours old tea that is no longer even luke warm, attempting to type the mommy-guilt out of my system so that my maternal shame isn’t allowed to fester and impair any potential sleep Knox graciously allows me to enjoy tonight. I mean, what a cruel fucking joke that would be.
If I’m being honest— and I am but maybe should be— I’m not just tired. I’m also annoyed with the current season of mommy-ing I find myself consumed by. Quite frankly, if anyone else treated me the way my kids sometimes do, I most certainly would have already eliminated them from my life and, depending on the degree of their asshole-ness, punched them in the throat to really drive the point home. But when it’s my kids who are the assholes who make me feel like ramming my head into a brick wall would be infinitely more pleasant than whatever it is they are demanding I do? When it’s them taking home the douche bag crown of the day, why is it ME who ends up begging THEM for forgiveness? And for what exactly? For reacting like any normal human would to feeling habitually taken advantage of? I mean, how dare I cling to any of my remaining dignity and expect a person— whose ass I still wipe and whose fourteen snacks a day I am still asked to prepare, mind you—to dial down the attitude a few notches for the sake of everyone’s sanity?
The audacity I must possess… I mean, who do I think I am?!
So, in an effort to remember that in spite of recent events, that motherhood is by far the best and most rewarding adventure I’ve ever attempted, I’m going to continue to sit here alone in my dining room for a few more minutes of silence and being alone with my thoughts and the sound of my fingers tapping the keyboard. Once I’ve found my happier place, I’ll peel my ass up and off of this chair to go clean the kitchen and remove the food that someone— I’m won’t name names but it may possibly rhyme with fox and box and lox—managed to get on the ceiling while I was refilling his cup. After that, I’m going to take a very long, very hot shower, spending most of it laying on the floor of the tub because I’m that tired. I also just like the sensation— so sue me. Then, I’m going to slather a mask on my face that smells like yeast and raw vinegar but makes my skin positively glow with that fake-it-til-you-make-it-I-totally-got-eight-hours-of-sleep-lit-from-within luster I’m convinced is permanently out of my reach forever because I’ll likely never have a full, uninterrupted night of sleep again. Once my allotted thirty minutes of self-care have been tapped, I’ll promptly collapse into the middle of my bed since Joe is out of town for work and sleeping alone in the middle of the bed is one of my life’s guiltiest pleasures that I not-so-secretly take advantage of any opportunity I get. I’ll sleep for a few hours until Knox beckons my presence into his lair where I will be expected to cuddle and rock him back into slumber. And I will. But I’ll do so while silently praying to whomever is listening at such an ungodly time of night that his canines cut through his fucking gums already. Then I’ll do it again two hours later. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until I finally wake up and do it all over but hopefully as a slightly nicer mommy and less like the psychopathic ogre I’m starting to recognize more frequently in the mirror.
All of this simply to say that being a mom is hard. And also relentless. Relentlessly hard. Relentlessly maddening. Relentlessly emotionally, mentally, and physically all-consuming. Relentlessly relentless. And as much as I don’t always like my kids— like right now, for example— I can’t get enough of them and their love and value them and their piss poor attitudes beyond measure. I mean, without those little tyrants in my life, I’m not so sure that being well-rested would even be so appealing.
Fueled by denial, delusion, and a whole lot of caffeine, I can do the hard things. Solidarity, sisters.
We got this.