“I try to take one day at a time, but lately several are attacking at once.”

There is an electronic sign board that I see on my way home from bringing the kids to school every day. They put up a new inspirational message or quote every morning and this was the one today. Some days they are funny, others thought provoking. This one struck a chord. This has been a very difficult week and I’m not even sure why.

THE Daddy and I were away for 3 nights and arrived back on Sunday night. The week started with Princess having such anxiety over going back to school after throwing up in front of her kindergarten class that she refused to go to school without me. I spent a lot of time with her on Monday and she seems fine now. She was a little weepy on Tuesday and then bounced right back for the rest of the week. BamBam has been throwing tantrums every now and then, but he’s 2 and I expected a small amount of backlash from him as payback for leaving him for 3 nights. THE Daddy is back to traveling for work. He was able to sneak home on Wednesday night and managed to meet us at the chiropractor. Afterwards, we even got to eat at my favorite restaurant, Cartelli’s. It’s an Italian restaurant that also has a sushi bar…weird combination, but it makes my family really happy.

It was great to have THE Daddy home because we all really miss him when he’s away, plus I was exhausted and felt like sleeping after my chiropractic entrainment. The kids were not easy to get down and didn’t fall asleep until at least 9pm and I fell asleep in BamBam’s room with him until about 11pm. I snuck back into our room and THE Daddy was just taking a shower…which he sometimes does at night so that he doesn’t wake the entire house when he leaves at 5am. I was so tired that I couldn’t even muster up a conversation with him, let alone respond to his attempt to take advantage of us actually being in the same bed at the same time. I remember saying “Honey, I’m sorry, but I’m not superwoman…I love you very much, but I’m exhausted.” That went over like a ton of bricks. He’s been very cold to me with one word responses the rest of the week and I feel like shit because I know that I disappointed him and wasted a rare opportunity to be together.

SO, I woke up on Thursday feeling really shitty. He had already left before the sun came up. Since the kids got down so late, they were really hard to wake up and motivate in the morning. I managed to get them off to school, but didn’t get our “good morning” call into THE Daddy before dropping them off. In my defense, I tried, but it was later than usual and he didn’t answer because he was busy at work. He was already disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm the night before and then he didn’t get his morning kid fix, which equaled double disappointment. He’s been polite to me on the phone…I hate it when he’s polite.

Anyhow, we see a Network Spinal Analysis Chiropractor, Dr. Deb. She is an extension to our family at this point. I started seeing her when I was about 4 months pregnant with Princess. My whole family now sees her. If you are unfamiliar with the difference between a standard Chiropractor and Network Spinal Analysis, check this out. It’s changed our lives and we try to see Dr. Deb at least every 2 weeks at this point. It had been longer for Princess and we felt she really needed to release tension and work out her anxieties, so I booked another appointment for her on Thursday as well.

The kids were in pretty good spirits after Princess’s entrainment, so I thought I’d bring them to Friendly’s for dinner. We get in there and BamBam throws a fit as we’re about to be seated. I’m still not sure what triggered it. After he kicked me and refused to sit down, I looked at Princess and said, “I’m sorry, but your brother isn’t in a good mood and we need to eat at home.” We promptly exited the restaurant, much to the relief of the other patrons and our potential server. We get into the car and Princess starts yelling at me. THE Daddy’s side of the family tends get verbal when they’re angry. I like to call it “barking”. It reminds me of an angry dog…you know, when they are barking so loud that you can’t get them to hear your commands to stop because they literally can’t hear you. I used to try to rationalize with them, but learned that it is impossible and you just need to let them work through it and speak with them about it afterwards when their ears (and minds) are open again. She ranted for the entire trip home, which took an agonizingly long 20 minutes. Here’s what she said over and over again,

“I don’t love you, Mommy. I don’t want a Mommy. You’ve ruined my entire life. I want a different Mommy. I only want Daddy. But if Daddy does what you did, I don’t want him either and then I won’t have a family.”

Now, I expected to hear these words at some point in our lives together. I didn’t expect them so early on in our relationship. SHE’S 5 YEARS OLD! And I’m a pretty good Mommy, if I do say so myself. Sure, I have my faults, but she’s more than provided for and she knows that I love her. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. THE Daddy was so polite to me at our “good night” call that I didn’t even tell him how horrible the night was. Ditto again this morning.

Princess bounced back and was disgustingly sweet to me the rest of the night, and with the exception of a small fit over not letting her wear lipstick to school this morning, has been on her best behavior. She apologized for being mean and we worked through it. One of my sisters-in-law gave me a visual to use to explain to the rest of the family what happens after they lash out. It describes how I’m feeling perfectly.

You start out with a clean slate, a nice new piece of paper. When someone verbally berates you, it’s as if they took the paper and crumbled it. When they are finished and apologize (themselves feeling better), they think they’ve smoothed out the paper and all is well. The truth is that you can take a hot iron to the paper to smooth it out, but it will always have a crease where it was crumbled. That’s how I feel today.

Motherhood and being a wife has many rewards that I could not even begin to list, however, I have never felt so inadequate in my entire life as my husband and daughter can make me feel. It’s as if they always want more from me than I am able to give and it sucks. When we’re having good days, I’m skeptical because I feel like I’m on the high side of the teeter-totter…it’s only a matter of time when it goes crashing down to the bottom and you hurt your butt! If anyone has the secret recipe on how to find the perfect balance in the middle, please share.

My “Thank Goodness It’s Friday”…the weekend is coming and we’ll have time together as a family. Hopefully, we can find some sort of balance briefly before it gets thrown off again on Monday.

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