Right now, I’m the happiest mommy on the block. I just know it.
Why? Well, it’s because my three-and-a-half year-old son and my two-year-old son are both staying at my parents’ house and my three-month-old son is napping.
But it’s also because it’s morning and that means it’s a new day.
See, last night, I was the saddest mommy on the block. I cried myself to sleep thinking about the many ways I’d failed that day, losing my patience – and my temper – with my little guys as they pushed every button of mine that they could find. Someone told me once that if I thought the “Terrible Twos” were bad, I should wait until I saw the “Threes.” She was right. But even more challenging is both of those together. Plus a newborn.
At any given time during the day, someone is in time-out, someone needs juice, or to be fed, or to use the potty, or is crying, or bumped a head, or had his toy taken away, or is having a temper tantrum because he wanted the blue cup, not the red one. Often several of these are happening at the same time. Often on different floors of our house. I’m up nights breastfeeding a newborn and potty training two toddlers during the day – some of the hardest parenting experiences all happening at the same time. It’s a Parental Challenges Trifecta. I’m sore and tired and my fuse is shorter than it should be. Some days, I’m the grumpiest mommy on the block.
I yell. I yell because sometimes no one hears me when I’m just talking. Sometimes I yell a lot.
But I have three of the sweetest little boys on the planet.
My firstborn is kind and sensitive. He breaks my heart. He is a perfectionist who is afraid to fail. He is desperate to poop on the potty and petrified of it at the same time. He watches his younger brother do it with ease and even cheers him on. But when it’s his turn, he is afraid. He is painfully outgoing and frequently gets his feelings hurt as he walks up to children at the park, introduces himself, asks if they’d like to play with him, and they, put off by his forwardness, tell him no and run away. But he’s also very headstrong and will test any limits set for him, repeatedly doing what I’ve just told him not to do, despite warnings, time-outs, and removal of toys or privileges. My firstborn makes me cry.
My middle child is a cuddler. He’s rough-and-tumble, always getting hurt, still needing me to kiss away his boo-boos. He’s creative and artistic. He loves singing and drawing and painting. He begs to help – bringing me diapers and tissues as needed. He loves to do things himself, shrugging off my hands when I’m trying to assist him. Yet he gives hugs freely and always asks if he can hold me. Which, of course, means he’s asking if I can hold him, often while I am cooking or holding his baby brother, which means that I’m not able to hold him every time he asks. He has a sweet little froggy voice. He tests limits, but is sensitive to correction. My middle child makes me cry.
My newborn is a sweetheart. He’s smiling and cooing before he even opens his eyes in the morning. He’s easy to read, easy to console, a good sleeper. He’s happy in his swing, happy to lie on his activity mat while I’m fixing dinner. He’s already on a schedule. He loves to take a bath. He’s growing much faster than I’d like him to and I’m trying to savor every precious moment of his babyness because I know that before I can blink, he’ll be crawling, then walking and then he’ll want to be a big boy and not a baby anymore. My baby makes me cry.
I cry because I feel guilty. I cry because I don’t know how to juggle them all sometimes. I cry because they’re growing so fast. I cry because I feel that sometimes I’m pressuring them, or ignoring them, or disciplining them too much, or they’re watching too much television, or not getting to the park enough. I cry because I’m not able to do as many crafts with them as I’d like, or read them as many books as I should. I cry because sometimes I’m squatting on a stool while nursing the baby while someone’s sitting on the potty and someone else is sitting on my lap and I’m reading them all a book and my back hurts. I cry because I know that my kids are friendly and outgoing and that sometimes their feelings are going to get hurt because of that. I cry because I feel frumpy and fat, and because when they stress me out during the day, I just want to eat Oreos or brownies and this doesn’t help with the frumpy and fat thing. I cry because I watch the news and learn about abductions and molestations and killings and wonder how I’ll be able to keep them safe from harm for the rest of their lives.
At night, I’m overwhelmed with all of the things I did wrong during the day. With worry. With fear. With exhaustion. With pain. At night, I feel defeated. At night, I’m often sad.
But in the morning, I have a fresh start. I have a chance to do it again and to try to be better at the things I’d had a hard time with the day before. Every morning, as I’m trying to get a few minutes to go to the bathroom uninterrupted, I think about all of the years I was single and lonely and had hours to myself and realize that I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Every day, I get to be the happiest mommy on the block, if only just until someone got their morning milk in the wrong colored cup.
I’m working towards being the happiest mommy on the block all day long.
