May 11, 2004

• Okay.

  
  

  I am over my little tantrum over Mother's Day. Really I am. I am old enough to ask for what I want, and not expect people to mind read. Even if I think that a fucking chimpanzee could mind read what a tired baggy saggy unkempt mama wants for Mother's Day, it's still my choice to simmer.

  
  

  And I choose not to. I have enough dramas in my life (believe it or not) and little enough joy in my days lately, that I don't need to manufacture any more reasons not to get out of bed in the morning. It's 4:30pm here, and I am so tired I am gagging, and I've still got another 5 or 6 hours left to go before life in the Magnet household winds down and I can crawl into bed and read half a chapter before crashing out cold.

  
  

  Dramas.

  
  

  Daily.

  
  

  Last night, Child One had her usual attack of the screaming meemies at 10:15 that went on and on and on and on until midnight. Now you cannot just tell a child to fuck off, no matter how much you want to, no matter how certain you are that said child is just yanking your chain. Because children do things for a reason, and I am sure Child One is well aware that I am having issues about my sucky life and is subconsciously trying to reel me back into the warm loving ever-patient mothering place that she cherishes. Boo ya. After a day filled with tantrums and lost socks and spew and grizzling grimy children - all I want at 10:30 is for her to FUCK RIGHT OFF. There, I said it. And I hate to admit it - I said it to her, sometime around the third episode of screaming without telling me why and the requests for one last hug. Even though you aren't supposed to say it to a child, I did.  Then of course I felt like shit, so I apologised and added another dollop of guilt to the complicated mix that is sitting like a boulder in my stomach. And I let her into the big bed. Even though it meant I would sleep lousy.

  
  

  Then Child Two started up at around 2am. On and off, crying and screaming, until I tried to get her into the big bed so Hub wouldn't bust a gasket at being awakened early. (He gets up at 5:30am and works long days, okay?). So then it was party time for the kids in the big bed, with much snorts of laughter and noses being poked and eyelids being pried open until I sent them all back into their own beds at about 4:30am. Did I mention Hub gets up (and by extension the whole house gets up) at 5:30am?

  
  

  I managed to fall back asleep at around 6am till 8am, dreaming blissfully about being on Survivor. (No food? No water? No toothbrush? Immunity challenges? Piece of piss if you don't have two kids tugging on your leg every minute of the day. Bunch of big girls, all of them, those pantywaist Survivors. )

  
  

  I had to get up cos we had a playdate arranged and besides I really love the woman who was coming and and and...but  lots of kids, lots of chaos, lots of noise, no naptime and here it is, not even 5pm and I feel like it's a million o'clock. The kids are upstairs alternating between fighting, playing and shouting down requests for juice/milk/dinner/television and every so often they want to come down and hang with me.

  
  

  No fucking way. I know why I feel like this - today wasn't out of the ordinary. They suck the life out of me sometimes. Now, in the distance, Child One has managed to bang or hurt herself somehow, which will require my immediate attention. Because of course, I am down here, and they are up there. Lots of screaming and wailing. And I don't even care. I don't care if she's got blood spurting out of her femoral artery, her arm sticking out of her ear or her ribcage showing outside her chest - go away.

  
  

  Let me have just one hour to regroup. To recharge before I have to pretend (cos that is what it is right now) that I give a shit that you've learned how to hop on one leg. Or pick your nose and eat it. Or remove a Polly Pocket shoe from Child Two's mouth.

  
  

  Do you get it? Life is hard enough on a day to day basis round here lately - for me, at least. It's hard to care 24/7 passionately about everything, when no one cares about you. No one is taking care of me, and I am sick and exhausted and feeling like my life is passing me by and my Hub is stressed and I can't remember what he looks like and no one gives a shit about me, but me.

  
  

  This is why I cannot be arsed to hold on to the resentment I had on Mother's Day. Because you have to just do it - whether you are appreciated or not, whether you get the bare minimum of down-time any human being needs in order to maintain your sanity or not, whether you are sick, whether you are battling the urge to run far far away - you have to do it anyway. You  made the choice to have children. You may not have realised how deeply shitty and completely fucked your days can be - but they definitely didn't. So you go on, snarling at them sometimes, apologising for being a crap mother, dragging yourself out of bed after 3 hours sleep and do the best you can. Sometimes it's not even that good. Sometimes, anyone would be a better parent than you. Sometimes the best you can give is just plain awful and you feel ashamed later.  But it's all you've got.

  
  

  And it's all they've got. So you need to let go of anything that isn't right there in the moment of parenting and just deal with what you can on a day by day basis.

  • 3:05 am
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