Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a serious of great moments and some of my not-so-great parenting moments. I ran a Mother's Day 5K this morning and shed a few tears thinking about how lucky I felt to wear the purple sticker identifying me as a mom. I haven't "raced" since long before Graeme was born. I gave up any strenuous exercise while in infertility hell, so it felt good to be in a crowd of runners. Graeme's "energy" was markedly better than yesterday, so that was a relief. He gave me a cute card with one of his infamous alien drawings and I got a few "I Love You Mommy" messages. But the day was also dotted (and ended with) me getting frustrated with him. And those moments make me sick to my stomach. I think he and I probably have similar "buttons" and they get pushed easily. It's my job to stay grounded, but sometimes I just fucking can't. Cajoling him out of store or into the car or upstairs for a bath takes every ounce of my patience and when I haven't slept more than 5 hours in weeks and Ian's glued to my hip and I can't find a clean pair of underwear and everyone is hungry and I'm sick of cooking, I just don't have it in me to pull out creative techniques to manage a stubborn 3 year old so I lose it. No good comes of that solution and I know that when I'm mid-tantrum. I'm fortunate that we are a two-parent family and can tag-team these melt-downs. But, fuck fuck fuck I fucking hate them. So, how was Mother's Day? It was wonderful and I felt special and honored and happy to be surrounded by my family. But, I also felt so overwhelmed by this job and not at all up for it and worried that I'm fucking up these little masterpieces. I don't have a creative wrap-it-up statement. I ran out of those around 7pm on the front steps where a dirty toddler was refusing to budge.