Smiling Mom

Each and every time I go silent on this blog, it’s due to stress.  I find that when I am overwhel­med up to my eye­balls, I tend to walk around all day long making up witty posts in my head.  Howe­ver, by the time my kids are in bed, I’m to exhaus­ted and overwhel­med to write any of it down.

I’m not sure what I fear or why I won’t put my thoughts down on paper during these times.  Maybe it’s because I’m so at a loss that I fear I’ll sound angry or ugly.  I don’t want to be ugly.  Maybe it’s simply that I’m tired and the men­tal energy it takes to rehash life’s stres­ses is simply too much.

During the past few weeks, I’ve come to rea­lize how for­tu­nate I am to have star­ted this blog.  It brings so much to my life.  My family knows where my head is without ever having to ask.  Some friends that I’d since lost touch with are now back in my life full swing.  New friends have emer­ged.  I am truly blessed.

In my last post I spoke of my son’s sepa­ra­tion anxiety issues and how overwhel­med we’ve been with him at night­time.  Well, nights have got­ten bet­ter but life in gene­ral with him has become way worse.  As a res­ponse to my pre­vious blog post, a dear friend living on the oppo­site side of Ame­rica in part wrote me:

I don’t pre­tend to be a nature lover so bear with me on the accu­racy of these details. Pic­ture a baby bird. It is born in its nest, and the mother bird (much like us) pro­vi­des everything for her baby. She searches for its food, keeps it warm, fends off pre­da­tors, and as the baby bird begins to grow in size, strength, and inde­pen­dence, it begins to learn on its own. Over time, the baby bird relies on the mother less and less. She teaches her bird how to fly and together they look for food. Yet, at the end of the day, no mat­ter how much the baby bird has flown on its own, it returns to the nest. It is in the nest that the baby bird finds its warmth, secu­rity, and recon­nects with mom. While it couldn’t be hap­pier with its new found inde­pen­dence, there is still that need to get home to the safety of that nest.

With each pas­sing year, BC has grown more and more inde­pen­dent. He plays more inde­pen­dently now than ever, he is busy gro­wing and lear­ning at school, he is swim­ming like a fish and gai­ning confidence…all these things are let­ting him stretch his wings and grown. Maybe by the end of the day, he has exhaus­ted that inde­pen­dent energy and needs a few minu­tes to recon­nect and recharge in the nest with you. Isn’t his song, “You are my sunshine”? Perhaps he just needs a few minu­tes alone each night with you. It seems like that was all it took when you gave him the autho­rity to say when you could leave.

At this res­ponse, I cried.  She actually took time out of her busy day to check in on me and see how I am doing.  She spent time researching each pro­blem and con­cern I emai­led her.  She reached out to me from a place we’d never ima­gi­ned we’d recon­nect.  My blog.  Other blog­ging moms have also come to my aid offe­ring child­care, play-dates, drinks… I’m so grateful.

I’m never one to reach out and ask for help.  I gene­rally try to solve all life’s pro­blems by myself.  Moments like these make me eter­nally gra­te­ful to those who can read bet­ween my lines and see that at times I’m just a mom, nee­ding a good shoul­der to cry on.

Tonight was the first night in many that I put my son to bed without an all out Super­nanny ins­pi­red hys­te­ri­cal meltdown.

I like to pat my own back, toot my own horn, if you will, on occa­sion.  I gene­rally think I’m gif­ted in the mothe­ring cate­gory.  I got skills!  Or so I tell myself.

But just as I find myself get­ting cocky again, my dear chil­dren smack me down and throw off my equi­li­brium.  I quickly re-realize how many skills I still need to grow.

Take for exam­ple my four year old’s sepa­ra­tion anxiety gone hay­wire.  A vete­ran mom has her set of tools, a solid bed­time rou­tine, a vision of paren­ting that goes something like; start as you want to con­ti­nue. We have rou­ti­nes.  We don’t vary far from the script.  My son knows what to expect.  Life trots along accor­ding to plan until *bam* I’m smac­ked in the face with a severe case of sepa­ra­tion anxiety. Him, not me.

Wha…wha…what??  Um, excuse me, that’s not in my script.

This week I reached my brea­king point.  I nee­ded help.  Nothing I or my hus­band did hel­ped calm or sooth BC’s nighttime/transitional fears. NOTHING.

In addi­tion, hea­ring, “Mama” (A word I des­pise from the get go, I’m Mommy, thank you very much!) “I need you!” in the same tone and pitch repea­ted in the same rhythm for two straight hours is akin to Chi­nese water tor­ture to me.  PAINFUL.

Ear­plugs didn’t even help.

I cried uncle and finally called the advice nurse Satur­day night.  I was at a loss.  No great plan, no big pic­ture, I was stuck.  I was called this mor­ning and BC was sche­du­led an appoint­ment with his pedia­tri­cian for 1:30 today.

I had a plan.  Relief was on the way.

At 1:30 I pac­ked up my tired daugh­ter and my hooky-playing son and hea­ded off to see my life­line, the doc­tor.  His doc­tor.  A woman, who I hoped, would rea­lize that I’m a mom who doesn’t ove­rreact or freak out over small issues.  That my con­cern was HUGE and WORTH her time.

1:30, I show up, exhaus­ted and see­king help only to find out that I have an appoint­ment sche­du­led with ANOTHER doc­tor, one with a repu­ta­tion for a BAD bed­side manner.

How could this hap­pen? I exc­lai­med, I spe­ci­fi­cally said MY doc­tor.  My eyes welled up with tears.

No relief today. I left empty han­ded, with an appoint­ment at the end of the week.  It was time to pre­pare myself for anther 2 hour kic­king, screa­ming, scratching all out hys­te­ri­cal meltdown.

No relief.

After a good cry and a sho­wer, I deci­ded to pull up my boot straps and try again.

I for­mu­la­ted a tem­po­rary plan and did something dif­fe­rent.  Ins­tead of telling BC that I would lay with him for 5 minu­tes (part of our old rou­tine), I deci­ded to let him dic­tate the amount of time I’d lay with him.

I gave away my con­trol.  And if you know me, you know how monu­men­tal that act was.  I. am. in. con­trol. damn. it.  But I gave it away.

And I’ll be dam­ned if that little stin­ker didn’t send me out of his room after only TWO minu­tes, pro­mi­sing me he was ready to sleep calmly without tor­tu­ring me for the next two hours.

Two Minu­tes.  I gave up con­trol and the pro­blem, tonight, was solved.

Days like today, I rea­lize that I, in fact, don’t have all the ans­wers.  If I just take the time to lis­ten to my kids, maybe they’ve been SREAMING their needs to me the whole time.

Skill Lear­ned, BC, skill learned.

So last night I had one of those Terri­ble Horri­ble No Good Very Bad parent/child exchan­ges. BC and I just couldn’t seem to work things out. It was an emo­tio­nally grue­ling exchange which left us both sob­bing and exhaus­ted. It made me doubt my skills as a mom. Did I do the right thing? Should I have hand­led it dif­fe­rently? I’m not sure. But did I do the best I could? Yes.

Thank­fully when BC woke up this mor­ning, he came run­ning out of his room, smile on face, straight into my arms. Thank good­ness chil­dren are so very resilient.

Hope­fully BC’s get­ting close to the end of this new defiance phase and all can go back to nor­mal in our house.

I wrote about our exchange over at SVMB today.

Today was a mise­ra­ble day.  My kids have that horri­ble cough that is going around accom­pa­nied by a fever at night and loose stools.

Ya, not fun.

eClaire got it bad yes­ter­day with a tem­pe­ra­ture reaching 103 degrees.  BC’s had the tem­pe­ra­ture the day before eClaire’s.  So he’s bet­ter except for a nasty snotty nose and one hell of a cough.

Today star­ted bet­ter than yes­ter­day pro­ved to be.  eClaire was a bit more her­self.  She actually had a bit of food at break­fast!!  Yeay for food.  Appa­rently it does a body good… if only I could rea­son with a two year old… sigh.

But the day got pro­gres­si­vely worse.  Both Hubby and I have been strug­gling with upset sto­maches and mine came to a head this after­noon. And poor Hubby began his new work week tonight.  Did you catch that?

Tonight.

That’s right folks, my hus­band job has tur­ned him noc­tur­nal four out of every seven days.

Good times.

So when he woke up from his late after­noon nap, he was met with a hys­te­ri­cal wife, laying on the couch, a messy house, two kids who wan­ted atten­tion, and mere hours until he was expec­ted at work.

I went to bed, eClaire had horri­ble, horri­ble loose stools and requi­red baths.  And through all of this, BC was extre­mely help­ful.  Thank God for small gifts!

It’s now the middle of the night and bet­ween Hubby and me, we’ve clea­ned up no less than 6 dis­gus­ting dia­pers, one throw up, and a messy house.

My kids were fed break­fast at 7:00, snack around 10:00, a sand­wich at 4:00 (oops, momma for­got lunch!) and no din­ner.  Ya, for­got that one too.

BC got a, “Sorry honey I for­got to feed you,” yogurt at 8:45 tonight.

Paren­ting at it’s best.

So now I’m off to sleep in eClaire and BC’s room, BC is slee­ping in my room because he has no sign of flu symp­toms yet… and Hubby will crawl into our bed as the sun rises, to sleep the day away and attempt to reco­ver himself.

Paren­ting.…sigh.