Not my finest hour

Working moms, if your child sleeps in until you go in to get him or her in the morning and you have to wake said child up to get dressed and loaded into the car to go to daycare?

Consider yourself blessed beyond belief. That is not what happens in my house. Ever.

This morning was not my greatest morning as a mom. Not at all. And I’m kind of ashamed of myself.

This morning I was rough-handed and harsh-worded.

Joshua woke up whining at 5:30.

His whine is a form of torture which would probably violate every rule in the Geneva Convention if we ever used it to interrogate prisoners-of-war. And? If we did use it? We would totally know where those weapons of mass destruction are by now.

o_o

Needless to say, Dan and I were less than thrilled with the fruit of our respective looms this morning. Even after we got him out of the bed, it was clear that he was still tired. I could see it in his eyes.

I got dressed while his whining turned into talking. Dan got him up and dressed and I went into the kitchen to eat some breakfast. And that’s when it all really went to Hell.

I was eating a bowl of cereal so Joshua wanted cereal. So Dan got him cereal. But then he wanted Goldfish. But only the purple Goldfish and not the blue Goldfish that are his recent favorite. But the purple Goldfish weren’t open yet. By this time, I’d finished my cereal and moved on to trying to pack a lunch, wash my coffee mugs, make my coffee, and get my bags loaded into the car.

Seriously, I had all of that going–water running so it could get hot so I could wash the mugs, a jar of peanut butter open to smear it on some bread, a bag of chips on the opposite counter so I could put them in a baggie, then I remembered that we used my school laptop last night so I needed to locate it and put it back in my bag.

And Joshua started following me whining that only I, his mother, was allowed to open the purple bag of Goldfish. Not Daddy. That just won’t do. Only Mama. So, I opened the bag of Goldfish and then he spilled some of them.

I poured some in a bowl and practically threw it at him.

Then he found a pair of Thomas underwear. Naturally, he wanted to wear them. Only Daddy couldn’t put them on him. Only Mama.

And I kind of lost it. I was elbow deep in three separate, yet equally important tasks, and my child was crying about underwear.

I yanked his shorts down, plopped him on the kitchen floor, shoved his feet into the underwear, and tugged them up over his diaper. Then he screamed that he didn’t want his shorts to go back on and I was shaking.

Literally, my hands were shaking with rage and my mind was a fog. He was crying. I was on the verge of screaming. It felt like it was a million degrees in my kitchen.

I can’t blame him for not wanting me to put his shorts back on him. Not really. I was Mean Mommy this morning.

I hate that the stress of not being able to put my child first in all cases whatsoever got to me. Because I can’t put him first in all cases whatsoever and that’s really not fair to him. Especially when he’s tired and I know it.

I had a million things happening at once and all my child wanted was me. His mother.

And I couldn’t give him 100% of my attention because other people’s children have to come first sometimes.

After Dan finally got Joshua’s shorts and socks and shoes on, Joshua, through tears, said “I’m sorry, mama.” And my heart broke into a million pieces.

I’m sorry too, Joshua. Mama’s sorry too.