No thanks, I'll be eating my words for dinner...

Of all the things on my agenda for today, taking the time out to blog is definitely not one of them, but if I don't respond to the need of cathartic release this blog really isn't serving its function at all--and so, I write...

Here it is, no make up, no fluff, accessories off barefoot bearing of my soul. I feel like a bad mom. I read the blogs of several of my other mommy friends, real and virtual and the way they long for bath time and they love the squeals of joy and excitement, the way they die a little inside if they miss bed time, and how they just love spending every minute with their kids, and I can't help but think either they're exceptional liars or I am a terrible mother. I suppose that maybe a lot of the feelings that I have came from the fact that I wasn't always a SAHM and we had to be pretty flexible very early on with Michaela because of my continued medical complications after her birth. After she was born, it was a tense time in Alex and my relationship. We were both struggling with our own demons, whether we realized it at that time or not, and we were disconnected. Fatherhood to an infant wasn't at all what he expected. He resented having a child and the fact that it took time away from us. We both worked all day, and I was running to and from daycare, with a 35 minute commute one way (without traffic), then coming home to do the household chores, cook dinner and then bathe and get a little one to bed and all without any help. Unless I specifically asked him to hold her or feed her or spend any time with her, he didn't. I began to resent those tasks. Bath time just became one more frustration and another 20 minutes that I spent wrestling a screaming baby from dinner slopped mess to powdered bottom and jammies, and all that I longed for was putting her in the crib and shutting that door so that I might feel human, even for just an instant.

At 7 days old, when I was readmitted to the hospital and told that I couldn't have my child with me, I missed a lot of bed times, and bath times, and while it hurt desperately to have her away from me, it was ok. Then we became youth leaders, and our time was pulled in so many different directions. We regularly had events that required finding a babysitter for Michaela. She was at daycare all week, and with a sitter a lot on weekends and something broke. And then there were two! While Alex and my relationship was vastly improved, and his demons had been wrangled and he offered boundless more support and cooperation, my demons still had a stronghold, and again I struggled. We became even more involved in the youth which meant several over night stays with grandparents and sitters. I was alone for what sometimes felt like days at a time, because of Alex's work schedule, trying to care for an infant and not completely neglect my toddler, but I think I did. Here I was it was all the same tasks, but doubled, and all day long. There wasn't the "break" of going to work, there was the brief hour long stint of synchronized napping that was supposed to be enough to make me feel like I could survive this chaos, and somehow, I did. Sure it's still crazy, but I've gotten things under control in the last 21 months, but not without what I'm sure is more than a fair amount of damage.

I write this from a very broken place. Yesterday was by and large probably the worst of my days as a mommy. All the time and energy that I've spent focused on trying to never discipline out of anger completely flew out the window, when I found my 2 girls covered from head to toe in my makeup, as was my dresser, several towels and my carpet. Sure, I know it's cute when little girls want to be just like their mommy and put on her make-up and her shoes, and dresses and act like a "big lady" but the thing is, it really is only cute the first time you're paying a deposit on an apartment because the carpet has lipstick stains, when you're on the 2nd or 3rd it immediately incites anger. Had it just been Emily even there might have been a lesser response, but it was a full blown catastrophe. You see, Michaela has gotten into my makeup before, she got into trouble and had since, not touched it...until yesterday. I walked into that room livid. It wasn't just about the makeup, or the carpet, it wasn't just the fact that I knew she knew she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing, or the fact that she encouraged her sister along the process, it was all of those things and all of the other things in my life along with the added nudge from that uninvited house guest Mrs. PMS that completely shoved me over the edge. I hit my wall and I fell apart. I disciplined from sheer unadulterated anger and it just went down hill.

I found myself screaming into those precious little faces, faces contrived with fright and tears running down their cheeks, and I just kept yelling. Without any compassion, I cleaned the makeup off of them and put them in their beds for nap time, slamming the doors as I uttered threats. Michaela was told that when she got up from her nap that she better not leave her room without it being clean or suffer the torrent of spankings I had coming her way. I threatened to throw all of her toys away, break them and destroy her things just like she had mine--really, I was that immature! Then I walked away, hoping that the next 2 hours of silence would be sufficient to alleviate the bubbling rage in the pit of my stomach, but before I knew it, mid-hamstring stretch, Michaela comes waltzing into the living room arguing that there's just too much to do in her room and so she can't clean it. Now side note here--she's 3, when we ask her to clean her room, we absolutely by no means demand perfection, and we've striven to ensure that there is organization and a place for everything. She knows the place for everything and is very capable of completing the task, but she is also very capable of coming up with a myriad of excuses why she is incapable of completing the task. Much to her (and my) dismay, this was one of those days.

It was a matter of principle, and punishment that she was required to clean her room unassisted. I was still harboring this irrational anger over the earlier incident and every time I looked at her I was just furiously angry, every time she tearfully made an excuse as to why she hadn't done it, couldn't do it, or wouldn't do it, the anger swelled until I swear every neighbor was no more than a button push away from calling DFS because of the yelling and blood curdling screams that were coming from my home after I finally made good on my promise and spanked her--palm to bare bottom. This only made things worse. She was hysterical now, how did I expect her to complete the task that she had started 2 1/2 hours earlier and I was even more angry, but this time with myself. How could I have let my anger get so out of control that I took it out on her. Sure she initiated the anger, but it was hardly about her at all. I literally couldn't stand to see my reflection in the mirror, because I hated myself so desperately for hurting her, for making her cry, for making her, no, for making them fear me. So, I took out the anger on everything else. I made Alex feel bad for requesting what I had suggested for dinner. I complained about making my own separate meal that was healthier, I complained because my throat hurt because I had yelled so much. And I put them to bed, with prayers of utility stoic bedtime kisses and abruptly shut doors.

So, I think it was more than a matter of coincidence and repetition of my sarcasm from last week* when Michaela threatened her imaginary child with "beating their butt" and told them that she was "a terrible, mean mommy" I fear what she thinks of me--what she deserves to think of me. I fear what Emily is learning as she watches Michaela have these power struggles with me, and I already see her defiance, and I fear that I'm completely losing control. I'm losing control of my 3 year old, who talks back and has an opinion about everything, I'm losing control of my 1 year old who insists on following everything her sister does, and I'm losing control of myself as I give in to these emotions, spout off the anger that I'm feeling and submit to the emotion. I think back to the beginning. I think back to all of the reasons why I resent the tasks and I can't help but wonder if it's made me resent not just the task but somewhere deep down, I resent them too? I wasn't ready to become a mommy when Michaela was born, but we were irresponsible, the same way that we were when Emily was conceived, and so it all became a matter of utility. Without question I love my children, but I think I did them a huge disservice by having them before I was emotionally ready, and thus I eat the words that I speak, because I don't really hear the biting pain with which they were delivered until it's coming out of my 3 year old's mouth and so I'm broken and convinced that no matter how much I seem to have it all together, I've done it all wrong........

*At some point last week Michaela was being difficult and whining about opening the garage door. I was in a hurry and opened it before I even had a chance to realize what she was requesting and so she went on to ask why I didn't let her open the door to which I sarcastically replied, "Because I'm a terrible, horrible mean mommy, who never lets you do anything you want to do."