December 14 18

My life is a literal constant carousel of things my children want me to watch.

“Just look at these meme,” the littlest one says.

“Read this chart — those are my math grades. And this one. It shows how the Packers are going to make the playoffs,” the middlest one says.

“Go watch the video I sent you on snapchat that I then texted you about because it’s very important that you watch this immediately,” the oldest one says.

Which is just to set the stage for the story I am about to tell you — the story of how, after a really, really good week of solo parenting, I finally lost it in superfine form. As in, I yelled for the first time in months.

“Look at this beautiful story, Emily. This costume designer repairs the broken wings of a monarch butterfly. Wow. You can’t even tell it was broken.”

It’s really lovely, you should click. I can wait.

repair-monarch-butterfly-wing

 

(Photo: Romy McCloskey)

I mean, look, I know that mornings are a little bit hectic and everyone’s sleepy and edgy and frazzled, but I had just made two pizza bagels that no one wanted to take for lunch, feed and watered the dog, emptied the dishwasher and had already gotten a head start on the carrot muffins for Shabbat so I figured I could sit and drink my coffee to soothe this sore throat {hopefully not strep or tonsillitis — fingers crossed!} and scroll through Facebook for a minute and a half. Before coffee I tend to scroll past the “oh my good god what has the president done now?” news and head straight for the “oof this gets me right in the feels” stories. And this one, it got me right in the feels. I thought Emily would like it, and would distract her from the fact that I told her she couldn’t take the green beans to school because I need them for dinner tonight.

“You know, Mom, all of these things you’ve been showing me lately….they are so reddit-y.”

So, what set me off wasn’t what she said exactly, it was how she said it.

I’m a big TONE person, and her tone was, how shall I put this . . . obnoxious.

“Um, okay, I won’t show you any more good-for-the-soul posts. I thought you’d appreciate it….”

“OH OKAY MOM. ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?”

I will spare you the escalation of how the back-and-forth of this conversation went from me showing my daughter a beautiful story about a butterfly into me raising my {sore} voice and actually screaming at her.

I was so angry.

I worry that because I have such a close and good relationship with all three of my children, lines can get blurred and they forget that I am THEIR MOTHER. I always stop in my tracks when Isabella shoots me a “You good, hun?” like I’m one of her friends. She doesn’t think she’s being disrespectful, though, because she knows that she can talk to me. And I’m so thankful for that. My kids tell me about their relationship struggles and their school struggles.

Emily left for school with a slam of the door and an “OH OKAY” in her voice.

And then I cried for about half an hour.

Because I scrolled past this on instagram.

IMG_3201

Screen Shot 2012-05-31 at 4.12.12 PM

And I just want her to come home from school so I can repair this broken piece between me and my girl.

And maybe you won’t even be able to tell that it was broken.

 

-
  1. You will. And it will be fine. Because remember what we said/did to our mothers as teenagers in high school.

    xoxoxo

    (P.S. Tell Josh they aren’t making the playoffs this year. Go Bears!) 🙂

    Comment by Kristabella on December 14, 2018
-

Allowed tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>