I was trying to get my 3 year old to dance on time. It was 3:42 and we had to be there by 3:45. We were just getting in the car, my hair was frantic and my mood was uptight and anxious. Just when I need my 5 year old to be independent and strap herself in the car seat, (which she does every single day) she cannot. So I, of course, mumble to myself and grunt and I’m stretching sideways from the front seat trying to strap her in with a full-term pregnant belly that is ROUND and voluptuous (not in the good way). I’m absolutely too tired to get out of the car and walk around to the other side to complete the task. TOO TIRED!!! I catch eyes with my 3 year old who is watching the scene intently and she says, “You’re a crazy mommy!!”
SIGH.
What was the cause? Hormones? Lack of water? Was it the fact that there was a pair of shoes on the steps that I’ve been looking at for 4 days and haven’t moved them? Was it the fact that the dishes hadn’t been touched all day and I know I was coming home to that? Was it the fact that all the jackets and scarves and clothes were spread all around the dining room and up the stairs and I couldn’t BEAR to pick them up and bring them to the basement for laundry?
Whatever the case, at that moment, I felt like a crazy mommy (even though I was furious at my 3 year old for saying that). I felt crazy because I think I was acting frantic and crazy; and for what reason? So what if she is 5 minutes late to class. Who cares?! But, I did. I cared a lot in that moment. When we got home, I started making dinner and then literally hit the bottle of olive oil with my stomach and it knocked the bottle over and half of it spilled all over the floor. I literally sank to the floor and cried. My daughters both ran over to me and started slipping and sliding all over the place. That made me laugh. And then they laughed. My 3 year old said, “Mommy, we are a team. You aren’t alone.” My 5 year old said, “Mommy, I don’t want to see you cry, I’ll help you clean it all up.”
Thank goodness.
I know there are so many moments in our life when we feel like; we just can’t do it anymore. And if you are reading this and saying to yourself, “Not me,” well then I’ll take your robot measurements because you aren’t human. Everyone has those days.
When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
The tide turned for me as we sat on the floor in oil and I realized how grateful I am to have these 2 little beauties. I always know, but sometimes you need to really recognize it; how they can be there for me too! How they are on my side. How they aren’t conspiring against me for all of eternity. Ha! Otherwise, you can be caught chasing a tail that you never really catch. You just keep spinning and spinning until you fall down and sob, feeling alone. But, when you think about it like the tide, as the wave washes ashore your burdens and you start again with a new mental attitude, you realize how easy it might have been in the first place. We all have chances to start again, over and over again, until we get it right. And we can. But the truth is, if we can’t for a moment that is ok too. Just give it a moment, take a deep breath, and wait for the tide to turn. It will. And when it finally does turn, that is the moment when you will learn to surf…
~Noreen Heffernan,Writer, MA in Public and Corporate Communications, Certified in PR Writer, Growing Ladies