Keeping Perspective

There are times as a mother when you just want to scream. Or hit something (an inanimate something, like a wall of course). Or tear at your hair. If you haven't experienced this as a mother yet, don't waste a moment's sleep. You will.

There are days when everything goes wrong. You manage to get your toddler into his snowsuit after ten minutes of struggle only to realize he has just filled his diaper and needs to be changed. Now you will miss the bus. You spend time getting an elaborate lunch of homemade and healthy soup ready just to drop it on the floor. You make your first coffee of the day and then your five-year old believes it is a great idea to put a granola bar in it, to add some protein of course. Your child (who hasn't wet the bed in years) does this two nights in a row.

All of this happened to me over the past four days. And last night my sick baby puked all over his crib and floor at 1 am. I dragged myself out of bed (I wasn't asleep yet of course, because the older one had just been sleepwalking around his room looking for toast), cleaned the mattress and floor and changed the sheets. Baby boy decided it was time to feel better so took a little stroll through the bedrooms, waking up his brother again. After the crib was suitable again, I laid him down and he threw up again. So I went through the whole process a second time. I was considering pulling him  into bed with me to avoid the cleaning, but he may have thrown up on me and a shower in the middle of the night is not my thing. There are limits to how much I want to clean up. Besides, baby boy likes to play in the toilet when I'm in the shower, and I'm not going to go there again.

So this has been my week. It's been a pretty messy and smelly one, filled with bodily fluids and reminiscent of my group home days. But when I feel awake enough to scream about it, I try to put things in perspective. Sure it's gross. Yes, I would rather sleep than clean up vomit and urine. But really, it's to be expected. Kids get sick and kids have accidents, and this stage is not going to last forever. I am going to miss these days when my boys are teenagers and want nothing to do with me. Maybe not the specific messes, but the fact that they need me so much now.

It's why I chose to stay home instead of working. It's why my husband and I make so many sacrifices concerning money. I want to be the one there when they hurt themselves, or need an extra cuddle because they are sick. I want to have all those great stories of the funny things they did and what they got into (like the toilet). I remember this when I have hard days or weeks and all of a sudden it starts to seem, if not funny, at least acceptable. And then I go hug my children, even if they're covered in yucky stuff.