Our kids.
They’re it. The reason for absolutely everything. The reason behind every single decision we make, every time we sound guess ourselves and every time we feel like we’re not enough. They are the reason we press on, no matter what, why we never give up and why we will crawl through hell to get to them. They bring out the absolute best in us. Make us humble, generous, patient, nurturing and protective. They have the ability to bring us out of the darkest of places with one giggle or hug. Just when I think I have nothing left to give, that’s the very moment my son, my sweet and innocent boy, with his big brown eyes and hair all in his face, can bring me to the brink of tears with just a smile. And my daughter, she is a master at reading the room and turning it on its head. She has a fierce intuition, can sense my mood and adjust accordingly. Just as I’m about to rage over markers without lids for the 54th time today, she’s under my feet with some witty bullshit about how she was just thinking it was time to clean up these markers and saw some great organizer at Target we should pick up next time. And just like that, we’re talking Target runs and I’m not yelling. It’s an emotional shift that’s so pure and organic, but we can almost feel it physically. In an instant, they can turn our whole world around. For better or worse.
Our kids can certainly also bring out the absolute worst in us. Make us angry, defeated, irrational and selfish. And then we beat ourselves up over all these completely human emotions. If we’re too nurturing, we’re coddling them. If we sit and scroll our phone for a mental break, we’re neglectful. No matter what, we convince ourselves that we are permanently traumatizing our children beyond any repair. And we do this to ourselves daily.
So, while we are turning ourselves inside-out in order to be the perfect mom, what is happening to all our other relationships? Relationships that include the husbands, the parents, the siblings, the girlfriends, the teachers, the coffee baristas, the umpires, oh…and ourselves. I don’t know about you, but there is not one on that list that I haven’t completely snapped on, just this past week. Full disclosure, I’m currently on a flight home from Panama City Beach. We left the day after Christmas, with the house upside-down from gifts, food and 48 hours of family, for my son’s baseball tournament. Took the grandparents and my sister with us. I’m sure I don’t have to explain how exhausted we were…are. He played a week of baseball and we rung in the New Year. It was a great trip. Fun, beautiful weather, a rental with a big pool and teammate besties to share it all with.
Let’s back up just a bit, though. The lead up to Christmas is not an easy one. The shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the purging, the decorating, the parties, the meltdowns, the cookies and 46 visits to see Santa. All while I had to also pack up my family of four for a 7-day trip. A trip, for which I do all the booking, planning, organizing and arranging. Book the flights, the house, the rental car, the dinners, the activities, because I’ll be damned if I let anyone else do it. Add to that the pressure I put on myself when everything doesn’t go according to plan…cut to the point of a bracket play tournament, which I already know we won’t have game times until pool play is done, yet I still try to plan around it. If you don’t know what I mean, because you still have toddlers, don’t worry, you soon will. Basically, we don’t have Monday’s game times until all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday’s games are played, so planning ahead is literally impossible. Back to the point…the house we rented is 20 years older than it looked in the photos, I have to change Monday’s dinner reservations, my mom made a one-word comment over something insignificant that I will overanalyze for the next 8-12 hours, Kennedy’s Ipad died, and I forgot my hyaluronic acid at home. So, you can begin to understand why the poor umpire caught my wrath by game 2.
Umpires, waitresses, airline counter people are all easy targets though. I yell about whatever is happening in that moment, likely to no avail, and we all move on with our lives. Side note: my son is a catcher and was taken out by a runner from 3rd, to which I screamed what are you gonna do about that Blue! Only to be told there’s no slide or surrender rule here. I exploded into a burst of flames, ready to charge the poor man myself, when my husband and family tried to calm me down. Of course, that never works, unless the goal is to make me even more unhinged. So, I proceeded to fight with everyone around me for the rest of the night, ruin dinner after the game and cry myself to sleep. Let’s not forget when my daughter woke up the next morning and asked, Mommy did you put on your makeup that makes your eyes look not tired? Because it doesn’t look like it. No sweet girl, mommy’s eyes are swollen 3 times their size because she cannot regulate her emotions properly, drinks only 4 sips of water every 3 days, supplements most meals with a caramel latte and tries to take on the burdens of the the entire world alone.
You’ve all been here, right? You’re breaking point. You would think we would get better at realizing we’re just on the cusp of losing our shit. Like an internal warning system, yelling stop! No, that’s too much. You have to sit down or walk away. You have to let that comment from the other mom on the bench go. You have to hydrate more than just your forehead. You have to stop scrolling Pinterest and feeling like your brand-new home is less than. Warning! Warning! You’re about to cause a scene! SOS! But no, we push forward, battle our exhaustion, ignore the tension headaches and continue to do everything for everyone. Then we are shocked when we rip the cabinet door from its hinges because our sweater gets caught on the handle. Other minor inconveniences that can send me into an absolute fit of rage include: when the very full trash bag is stuck in the can, when anyone in my family eats crackers, hitting the trunk button only to get in the car and have the trunk door not close all the way because something is caught, walking into my bathroom and seeing an empty toilet paper roll, having to forward an email I’ve already sent, getting up to get my credit card when shopping online, Instacart substitutes, windows with both cool and warm Christmas lights, and Amazon emails that my package will not be arriving in the next 45 minutes, as promised. Any one of these items have a capability to turn me into 2007 shaved-head Britney, bitch.
Are there better ways to cope? Of course. There are strategies to lighten the burden and the mental load of being the one in charge all the time. I can speak, at least for my generation of elder millennials, to say that this group of dads are hands-on dads. They show up, they make the time, they wear the baby carriers, and they are in it with us. My husband is just that. Poor guy wants to help, I just won’t let him. I make the plans; you carry the bags. I schedule the appointments, pick the paint colors and the door hardware, make the weekly schedules, handle all the things and you take out the trash. Because if I make you do it, I’ll just be worrying the whole time that you didn’t do it right. WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS? The thought of showing up to a condo my husband rented without my help gives me 10x the anxiety of doing it all myself. He would probably be ok at planning our trip. I mean, he’s been on enough with me to know the expectations. It wouldn’t be exactly like I would do it, but it would be ok. But still no. No, I’ll do it all. And then I’ll use him as my punching bag every time I get annoyed, the kids are overstimulated, the appetizers take too long, and strike zone is a called too far outside at a 10U game.
What is my point? I’m not sure I know. My ears are popping because we’re close to landing, my daughter keeps opening and closing the plane window and it’ll be 8pm when we land. Just enough time to get everyone in the bath, pack lunches and get in bed. Back to school tomorrow, after 2 weeks off and I’m starting a new job. Well, an extension of my current job with 3x the responsibility and hours of weekly travel, all while my email inbox is flooded with everyone who is ready to “circle back in the new year.” What could go wrong?
Oh wait, I know what my point was. Check on your people. Check on your punching bags. Those relationships I mentioned up top. The ones who are fighting in the trenches with you, even though you won’t grab their rope so they can help you climb out. We know they are there with us anyway. My sister, who just grabs the kids and pulls them away to make them laugh when I’m ready to explode. My parents who travel all the way to Florida just so they wouldn’t miss a minute of my son’s games. My in-laws, aunts and uncles who are watching game changer from home and waiting to hear tournament updates and how many hits my son got each day. My girlfriends, with whom I’ve planned about 6 vacations, 19 brunches and 32 dinners, in our minds only because who has the time to actually go? The family and friends who call to check in whenever there’s a police shooting, and my baseball mom friends who are going through the same emotional rollercoaster I am, because is this umpire ACTUALLY BLIND?? I think if we have those people still sticking by us, we must be doing ok. We must be some sort of normal human, worthy of love, right? I hope I can always tread carefully on that line. That line of being so independent and overburdened that I snap on everyone, but also realizing my mistakes and apologizing for my behavior. Will I make any changes to avoid these conflicts in the future. Mmmmm, probably not. No New Year’s resolution to do better, here. Just an acknowledgment of said behavior. That will have to be GOOD ENOUGH. So, if I’m mean to you for little to no reason, it’s probably because I’ve only had a Reese cup and an iced coffee in the last 16 hours, we’re late for dance or practice and I’m sorry.
Call your mom, say your prayers and thank a cop. XO
Comments