A complaining sort of day

Today was one of those days that started out bad and quickly progressed to worse. It was the kind of day that makes you feels so defeated that all you want to do is crawl back into bed for the next 12 hours but instead your schedule is unusually full.

It started at 6:40 a.m., minutes after I'd sauntered out of bed. The phone rang, and I just knew it would be a parent of one of Gus's classmates asking me to emergency sub at his co-op preschool. Mark was standing there as I said, "No, no, no! I don't want to work today!"

"Just let me answer it and tell them you're not available," he said.

Really, Mark should know better. That's not how I roll. I'm a yes woman. I want to be the one people can count on. Really, I volunteered to be an emergency working parent, and I don't mind it. I'm one of the only parents whose child is a youngest child. Most have little ones, and it's nice that I have the flexibility to be able to pinch hit.

And yet. I didn't anticipate how often I'd be getting last-minute calls or how difficult it would be to change my plans with little notice. I had my day planned to the minute, and two and a half hours in Gus's class wasn't in there. Nevertheless, I answered the phone and said I'd do it.

Mere moments after I hung up the phone, Paul approached me. He wanted to know what username and password I'd entered for some app he'd downloaded the previous night. I said I didn't remember. What I really meant was that I'd have to try to enter a couple things before I came up with it. I couldn't even get that out because Paul, in true Paul fashion, went from normal person to screeching lunatic in no time flat.

Paul was hysterical, going on about how he was going to lose all his progress in the game. I told him needed to back off. I was in no mood. Ben was sitting at the table and blurted out, "Why are you yelling at everyone? You're just making everyone sad!"

Truly, I don't know what the "everyone" meant, because I'd only been short with Paul, but whatever. At that point, I lost it and stomped off, sputtering that all I do is care for them, and still I get dumped on.

Ben can choose the most inopportune times to decide he's going to stick up for his brother. What Ben said made me angry, but more than anything, it hurt. I felt attacked, and suddenly I'd hit my limit of acting as the repository for all the boys' frustrations. In the car on the way to school, I fully morphed into my mother, using the exact words she used to utter to my brothers and me. "You push and you push and you push me!"

The day didn't get much better from there. Gus was wound up at school. At one point, he got overzealous and whipped a toy over his head, inadvertently hitting another boy in the chin and leaving an abrasion. I was mortified.

After working in Gus's class, I zoomed to the grocery store for the shopping trip I had to postpone because of the volunteering. I put away all of the perishables, leaving everything else littering the countertops. I inhaled a quick lunch before going to volunteer in Paul's class, where the kids today were extraordinarily hyper and unfocused.

I'm home now, unwinding after volunteering one more time today - for an open house at Gus's school. Yes, I'm seeing my difficulties aren't as great as they seemed earlier today. First-world problems, as they say.

Parenting truly can feel like a thankless job. If my kids are like me, they won't fully appreciate us until they're adults - most likely when they have kids of their own.

Whatever tomorrow brings, I want to be calmer for my kids. I loathe being the mom who yells. I want to be a model of staying cool even when life gets frustrating.  I try so hard, I really do. Then all of a sudden a day like today blindsides me, and I act, well, human, I guess.

 

Sometimes I feel like I'm always striving to be the mom I want to be, and I'll never reach that goal. I'm holding out hope that I'm still evolving and that one day I'll be able to handle whatever life throws at me.