From the category archives:

Motherhood is hard

Being Mom

March 15, 2010 · 23 comments

I don’t want to be here today.
I didn’t want to be here Sunday or Saturday either.

The last few days it’s been an effort to be Mom.

I don’t want to change another diaper. I don’t want to figure out what to feed the boys. I don’t want to wash bottles, or play hide and seek.

I don’t really even want to blog.

You know what I want to do?

I want to lay on the couch, and watch hours of reality TV repeats on Bravo. Uninterrupted.

When I worked in an office before I had kids, there were days I didn’t want to be at work. Even if you love your job, it happens.

I could “phone it in” at the office. My job was mostly self-directed. So if I was tired, or distracted I kept busy with some mindless task like scanning (That was way back in 2004 when photos still came printed on paper) and processing new product photos in Photoshop. I pointed and clicked, eyes glazed over, my mind somewhere else. Eventually the clock hit five, and I went home.

If I really, really didn’t want to be a work, I called in sick and played hookie.

Mom can’t call in sick. I’m already at work when I wake up in the morning.

Mom can’t “phone it in”. Children must be dressed, feed, supervised, entertained lest the the house be turned upside down, or worse, someone gets hurt. Their needs don’t stop just because I’m having a bad day.

Being Mom doesn’t end when the clock strikes five. Mom doesn’t even get a lunch break.

Most of the time I enjoy being Mom.

But the last three days I’ve just had enough.

Every time I hear, “Mooooom!” I want to pull my hair out. I long for nap time to come, and dread the sounds of waking children an hour or two later.

Right now it’s overcast, and I’m hoping that it’s raining when the boys wake up, so we don’t have to go outside to play.

I don’t know the cause of my melancholy.

The kids aren’t being uncooperative. I’m not overly tired. My husband is helpful and supportive as always. I’m not stressed.

When I have days like this I pray.

A lot.

Sometimes minute by minute just to get from one moment to the next.

“Lord, help me get through the day. Help me not lose it during Candy Land, because the kid won’t follow the rules. Help me find the will to make dinner. Help me find the pacifier so the baby will stop crying. Please let Spongebob be on so David will sit still and be quiet for 20 minutes.”

Maybe this is His way of drawing me closer. Teaching me to rely on Him.

I don’t know.

I do know I made it through Saturday and Sunday. I’m halfway through today. Tomorrow, I think, will be better.

I’m already feeling a little better.

Blogging is nothing, if not therapeutic.

And the praying helps too.

But I’m still wishing for that rain.

Photo used under Creative Commons License.

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Mother of the Year Award

March 10, 2010 · 8 comments

Recent events that earned me points toward the Mother of the Year Award

1. Five year old David swallowed a marble. While I was in the room with him.

2. Nine month old Wade fell off the bed. While I was in the room with him.

Don’t worry. They’re both fine.

Me?

I think I need to take a parenting class.

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Take Him. He’s Yours.

December 10, 2009 · 3 comments

Oh my word. David was just all sass and attitude today. Moody, defiant, cranky. Everything was an argument that ended in tears, whining and time outs.

It’s days like this when I think Hannah was on to something when she dropped Samuel off at the temple.

Do you know the Bible story?

Hannah promised God if he gave her a son, she’d give the child back to Him. Scholars guess that Samuel was somewhere between the ages of two and four when Hannah took him to the temple and gave him over to the care of Eli the priest.

(You’ll find the whole story in the book of I Samuel Chapter 1-3 in the Old Testament.)

As a baby David was, for the most part, sweet, and compliant and cuddly. It was smooth sailing until the toddler years. Even two wasn’t so terrible.

Nope. It all started at three here.

Suddenly David had an opinion about everything, and a big enough vocabulary to more than adequately express them. Four has been about the same. Only with an even bigger vocabulary.

So I think next Sunday after church I’ll present David to our head pastor, and say, “Here. He’s yours. God told me to give him to you.”

O.K. Maybe not.

Pretty sure they wouldn’t take him. And I’d probably find myself signed up for some pastoral counseling sessions.

No, David won’t be moving in with our pastor any time soon. And I don’t really want to give him away. Although military school is always still an option…

But I was right when I said Hannah was on to something. Even though they live under our roof, we can still give our children over to God.

I think of both my boys as gifts from God that I’ve been lucky to receive. I am entrusted by God to train David and Wade up in the ways that they should go. What an honor and an awesome responsibility.

Really from the moments I found out I was pregnant with the boys I put their lives in God’s hands. I pray on a regular basis that they grow up to serve God. I seek God’s wisdom in raising them.

And on days like this, more than any others, I rely on God to give me patience, a soft-heart even when I’m angry and to work in David’s heart to change his attitude.

But, you know, I still make mistakes. I do and say the wrong things. There is comfort in knowing that God is working in the boys’ lives, sometimes in spite of me.

In this temporary world David and Wade are mine. But they also belong to an eternal Father.

Praise God!

That’s not to say the Lord can’t work through a good military school. Anybody know one with a Kindergarten program?

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