Ugly Mom

We're having problems with our connection, so when we came back from our in-laws on Sunday, I couldn't check my email right away. I never realize how addicted I am to this thing until for some reason, I am unable to be connected.

While I was gone, I had all kinds of bloggy ideas. I read The Lovely Bones pretty quickly, but not nearly as fast as I read Vox way back when. The Lovely Bones is about 3 times the length, with not nearly the same amount of sex. Every book should have as much sex as Vox. So I was going to write about Sebold's book. I was vastly disappointed with the second half of the book, after Abigail hightails it out of her family's life. The book, always highly emotional but with a kind of detachment that made it just bearable, seemed to descend into the maudlin. The ending was a bit too saccharin for me, and the whole Ghost-like Susie into Ruth's body thing had me shaking my head, but it still was a book that extracted a toll unlike any other I've recently read.

I was going to write about the Walter Reed hospital thing, and how it made me so sick that I felt like bitch-slapping some Generals. And then Cheney goes and gets a blood clot, and my husband was all like, "Put him in Walter Reed," and that about sums up how I feel. Everyone with their yellow 'Support the Troops' magnetic ribbons bedecking the backs of their vehicles should be marching on Capitol Hill. This is how we welcome home the soldiers. Jesus. It's enough to make me rip off my own head. I cannot imagine how it feels to actually be a soldier or the family of one, trying to make the new reality work, when the people in charge of taking care of them can't seem to get it together and make things as easy as possible. We talk about sacrifice, but cannot seem to reward it.

But anyway, this thing happened last night that left me incredibly shaken. And so here, in the bowels of the Internet, I shall write about it, detailing my crimes against humanity.

This is what happened: I totally lost it. Like, really fucking lost it, punching walls, punching the towel rack, screaming and yelling through clenched teeth. This incarnation of me is what I refer to as Ugly Mom.

There I was, making all kinds of inane threats about punishments I knew I could never serve, handing out intimidation with a side of bullying.

My 3-year old almost never gives us a truly hard time at bedtime. She will whine from time to time, get up again to use the bathroom, insist that she’s itchy and needs more lotion, but the actual number of times she has a complete and utter bedtime meltdown number 2 or 3.

We couldn’t seem to get through to her. She was tired, but agitated for some reason. She just would not stop whining and crying and asking for me, and I admit, I dream about the end of the day. I love my kids, but bedtime is a special, sacred time. It's when the clock chimes and the passing of time belongs to me and my husband. It's when books are opened, showers taken, Antiques Roadshow watched, sex had. It's when we can breathe and cuddle and speak without being interrupted. It's our time, and I feel insanely possessive of it. Especially now that the toddler is relatively used to her new life of sleeping. The expanse of time between their bedtime and ours is a new gift. I've been waiting a long time for it.

So when Hannah did what she did, certainly not unusual in the larger scheme of what children sometimes do, I got pissed. Really pissed. And I felt helpless. Really helpless. Threats didn't work, and closing her door only made her resort to a high-pitched scream.

Finally, at around 9:15, she asked my husband for a few more 'friends,' and he took a bunch of them from her wagon - the now defunct Greg Wiggle, a giant Octopus, and big fluffy dog pillow, and a few dollar store stuffed animals - and plopped them on her bed. It was then, after an hour and a half , that she relented. Her eyes closed, and somehow she looked passed the image in her head of her mother raging, so she could go to sleep.

I have a tendency to overthink everything. And I have this uniquely guilty feeling that I am constantly failing as a parent. It is not uncommon for my children to both be tugging at me, for Lillian to be wailing, “Moooooommmmy,” and for Hannah to be saying, “I need you mommy, I need you,” both at the same time. The surrender part of the parenting equation is something I have trouble solving: how to just let go, how to put aside my desires during the day and give myself over to them.

It’s why nighttime is so integral to my sanity.

But still. I made a mistake. Certainly nothing that did irreparable harm, but something that shouldn’t be duplicated.

When my husband and I went to bed, both exhausted from the chaos, he read for a bit while I reviewed the night’s events, trying to figure out where I went wrong and how I could have done better.

“You’re a good mom,” my husband said, as my sniffles gave away my tears.

I wish I were so certain. When people hear that I am a mix of Irish and Italian, with a sprinkling here and there of other across-the-Atlantic heritages, they say, "Whoo! That's a combination." My parents so vastly improved on their own upbringings that I sometimes feel they should be automatically pardoned for their own mistakes with us. But they're not. They made mistakes, and their mistakes are a part of who I am.

As an adult now, I need to find a way to surrender to my children, but not to my history; to allow myself room for error but not for rage. I need to be able to admit my mistakes and apologize for them, but not sacrifice disclipine.

You're a good mom. I keep rolling that around my brain, letting it bounce around the inside of my head. I need to believe it.

For them.