Bad Mommy

I'm having a bad day. Like a really bad, terrible, awful, no-good day. Some days it strikes me - there's no running away from home when you're the Mommy. And today - today I feel like a bad-mommy.

My kids are bad. There. I've said it. And no, I'm not trying to be facaetious. Seriously. They're bad. They don't listen, I'm not even sure they know what listening is. They're boys, so if they do something once and get in trouble, that generally means that they'll do it at least 15 more times just to see if it still makes Mommy angry.

And Mommy gets angry.



Mommy gets angry when the 3 year old has a giant meltdown in the driveway, flails like an epileptic on steriods while I'm trying to do up the carseat straps, screams bloody murder so that all the neighbours probably think I'm beating him to within an inch of his life while I try and hold his legs down on the carseat just enough to get the lap belt strapped in. I've thought about just closing the door and putting the car in drive, but that's illegal. So yeah, Mommy gets angry when all of that leads to Mommy being within a minute of being late for work... and my commute's not that long.

Mommy gets angry when little boys go into the knitting bag, pull out a piece in progress, remove 8 stitch stoppers and 4 double pointed needles and unravel 17 rows of hard won, pattern work. And then Mommy gets angry when she tries desperately to control her temper and ask "Why" and the answer is "Because I did.".

Mommy gets angry. And then Mommy yells. Mommy's a good yeller. And then little boys cry. And then Mommy feels guilty - bad Mommy. And then Mommy wants to cry.

Mommy gets angry when the playroom - which is supposed to be a food and drink free zone (how many times have we had THAT conversation? Only about 2 billion times) - is found to be crawling with ants and covered in pop (where the HECK did they get pop!? I don't even let them DRINK pop?! Let alone drink it IN THE PLAYROOM) and then when Mommy sops up all the pop and goes to plug in the vacumn, the vacumn cleaner knocks over one of the ONLY 4 dining room chairs we have and a leg breaks off. Not pops off, no - like shattered wood snapped in two not even remotely fixable - leg breaks off. Yeah, Mommy gets angry. And then... well... you get the picture.

These are the days that I feel like a bad Mommy. Be honest with yourselves - if it were you - would YOU yell? Probably. But it doesn't really make me feel better. And so I say to hubby (working from home) "I'm Done!" and go for a short walk. But all the walk accomplishes is gives me 5 minutes to myself to think about how other people's children don't throw raging meltdowns, make you late for work, destroy things you're working on, make your house a disaster (and boy oh boy - my house is a DISASTER) and scream at you and break things and beat on their siblings and completely utterly ignore and refuse to do what you ask... and that makes me think that maybe

just maybe
that's why I'm fat
and broke
and tired
and miserable.

No matter how much I don't want to be those things. I am.

I am a bad Mommy. And I'm probably a bad wife, and a bad friend too. But I don't know how to change it.

I have a friend - God bless her - she's a wonderful mother. She really is. I wish I could be more like her. I go to her house and there's like 3 kids books on the floor and a plate in the sink and she says "I'm so sorry the house is such a mess!". Her kids are playing quietly. They aren't viciously tearing their toys apart and using the pieces to beat each other or the dog. She says "The boys are being so awful today." I love her so much, and I admire her so much, but I don't know how to tell her that without breaking into a million little pieces because that's never EVER going to be me. I don't know how she does it. I don't know how anyone does it, all I know is that I must be doing it wrong. 

But that's my life. Bad Mommy. Bad day.

Tea.