Wednesday, March 13, 2013

I Was A Bad Mama Today.

as i sit here at my overly large; therefore overly cluttered kitchen island, i know i should be doing something else. something more efficient. something that will make my week run smoother.  perhaps getting something done that i won't need to rush through at the eleventh hour on saturday; the day of my baby's birthday and blessing celebration. 

perhaps, i should be stringing butterflies on fishing line or preparing my artichoke dip, blowing up balloons. instead i sit here. my eyes are tired and stinging from the tears that flowed there a couple of hours ago. i sit propelled here by sadness and maybe a bit of desperation too. 

it's 4:50 pm. i look like death on a saltine cracker. i really do. lord knows that i promised myself pre-kid that i would never look like those moms that looked tired and only did their hair when they had special plans to go out but you know what, it happens that sometime the only thing i can manage to do with myself is shower and brush my teeth. with a wish and prayer, i head out the door hoping i run into nobody i know.

let me prove it to you with a picture because us photographers like to post pictures and i just happen to be in front of my computer which had been opened to Mac's Photobooth by one of the monkeys. i'll do a selfie when i figure out how to do it. one minute...


this is how i feel. please don't feel sorry for me. this is just motherhood on a bad day and i know you've been there. i would post more, but i don't want to scare anyone. 

i feel the urgency to inform you that i did indeed have makeup on earlier, but 
like magic...it's disappeared. 

friends, today was a really hard day and i'm posting here because i haven't shared enough lately and sometimes i need to. 

one of my littles whom i adore so, so much. whom i love with all of my heart...well, this little one challenges me. every single day. every. single. day. 

every.
single. 
day.
over and over again. 

mamas, i'm so tired.

one of my littles  had some emotional outbursts today that left me feeling helpless and in tears and standing in the middle of the room looking around for someone to come and save me. i stood there a while and waited. nope. i was on my own and desperately needing some help. 

SuperNanny never appeared and i felt hopeless at getting things calmed down, so 
i called my hubby, he was at a meeting and couldn't help. you know it's bad when i make the call to daddy for backup. he did suggest i take his parents up on their offer of taking the kids for the day. lord knows i LOVE my in-laws. like, love. BUT nothing would make me feel more like a failure than having to hand off my crazed kids to somebody else when i should be able to do this...with flair. 

it didn't help that when the shit was hitting the fan, i made it worse by adding fuel to the fire. oh, it was horrible. 

today, ivy wanted a string of plush birds that peyton had hanging in her room. ivy was playing with them when i entered the room. big sister no longer wanted to share the birds for no particular reason and that pissed ivy off to no end. after pleading that she please let ivy play with the birds all i heard was a loud, "NO!" 

sharing is hard for this one, so i grabbed the birds and informed her that she would get them back after her room was clean. i even said we could rearrange her room and set up an art desk near her window. incentive as i had been pleading with her to clean her floor since after breakfast yesterday.

she started yelling at me about the birds.  ivy jumped because she was scared and i'm sorry folks, this is where it gets ugly. 

i grabbed the string of birds pulled them into two parts and gave them back to her. 

"here, have your birds." and i walked out of the room. the truest sense of the phrase walk of shame played over in my head.

i don't know why i did it. i think the stress of the midmorning defiance was more than i could take and that was it. 

not a stellar parenting moment. i was so ashamed. i am so ashamed. what happened to me? i lost my mind. i couldn't believe i did that. 

"YOU MURDERED MY BIRDS! MOMMY, YOU MURDERED MY BIRDS. THEY WERE SO SPECIAL TO ME."

i had one kid screaming and throwing clean laundry around the house to get back at me, one kid wearing a sad face because it was too noisy and was sad that i was so angry at the other one and vice versa, and the baby was following me around the house crying because she wanted those damn birds on a string. 

today started as a great day. we walked around the neighborhood and looked for singing birds in trees. we discovered a new path in our new hood. i promised homemade chocolate chip cookies after lunch. today was good. today was a spring break 2013 memory in the making.

how did it evolve into this? i needed my super mommy flag to fly today. i needed to see it sailing behind me...high and proud. i needed to know that what i was doing was the right way, or better yet, the perfect teachable moment that she would remember forever. i live in fairytale land like that. 

today, my little one defied me over and over again and then with one sentence, a few words that probably meant pennies to the one speaking them, my confidence was shattered after i begged for an answer. "why are you behaving this way? what is going on inside of you that is making you act so mean towards mommy?" as i heard the words coming out of my mouth, i knew i worded the question wrong. 

shit. i'm messing her up. my words are hurting her. 

well, the damage was done. i waited for an answer:

with tears in both of our eyes, the response was clear.
"it's you. i don't like the part of you that is in me!"

that small sentence couldn't have hurt me more than if a lion had suddenly appeared in my daughters pink, messy room and tore both of my arms off with its teeth. 

my own heartbreak heaved in my chest and i couldn't look away from my little. i tried to read the brown eyes in front of me and sure enough what i feared i would see, i did. she meant it. in her way and in that moment...she meant it. 

mentally, i quickly tallied up how many i love you's i deliberately say to each of my kids each day. i quickly assessed my true feelings for each of them. i want more for them than for myself. i would walk across coals for them. give my life for them. 

i really do love them more than anything else in the world, right?

why am i questioning myself what i already know the answers to? do all moms doubt themselves like this? 

after i assured myself that i was doing the best i could do, i held my shaky ground and asked my child to clean up her floor and i said that she wasn't leaving the room until her floor was clean. when her floor was clean, we would go back to World Market and get another sting of birds to hang in her room. i reasoned that now she had crafting birds to use in her art projects. i said i was very, very sorry that i had made that mistake, but that she needed to pull herself together and get her room in order and speak in a respectful way. 

my phone had been ringing off and on for over an hour and when i got up to leave the room, i decided i would take the call so i could pretend my mom strength hadn't been broken. 

however, when i heard kell's cheerful voice on the other end, i immediately broke down into a hundred tears. i ran to my room, shut the door and let the tears flow. 

"my day was so good earlier and now it's turning to shit!" 

she heard peyton yelling some things in the background and she asked me what was going on. i needed advice so i told her an edited version of the story. she listened. and when i cried louder she did what any amazing friend would do, she said i was doing a good job and that sometimes kids can be difficult. it's okay. it was just a bad afternoon. 

i debated on telling her the whole truth. i was so ashamed that i had 'murdered' peyton's birds-on-a-string. but i needed to get it out. let it free. it was eating me up. 

i interrupted something she said because i needed to quickly say what i needed to say before i lost my nerve,

"kelle! i murdered peyton's birds-on-a-string! i did. she pissed me off and i guess i decided to break the sting in half and then all the beads dramatically fell to the floor as i handed them back to her and said, 'here, take your birds!'"

silence. lots of it. 

still silence.

finally, i heard sounds. not words, but sounds...
and then, in tandem and out of love and understanding for this thing called motherhood and perhaps for the obvious revelation of my bad mommy behavior, we started laughing. we began laughing so hard we couldn't speak for a full minute or two.

when my crying was replaced with fits of loud laughter, i knew what i had done wasn't so bad. i mean, i wouldn't do it again, but i knew my truth was out there and it felt good to share. 

when we were able to compose ourselves, we started sharing bad mama moments with each other. mostly, they were stories that we already knew about each other but it felt good say them again.

remember when, the kids were screaming and we couldn't figure out why and then we remembered that we skipped dinner; remember when i pushed becks off of the bed when he was 7 days old; remember... 

it was funny. it helped. it felt good. i think all mommies should do it more. 

"you...oh my, you...killed her string of birds?!"

"well, yes i did. i was a bad mommy today."

my girl just finished cleaning her room. it took about 48 hours to complete the task, but you know what...the pride on her face when she called me in brought happy tears to my eyes. and when she hugged me and said she loved me...well, i already knew that but i'm happy to hear it a million more times. 

my poor use of time hasn't been that at all. 

thanks for listening to me, xoxo



Tuesday, March 5, 2013

a year ago tonight...

tonight, i am scurrying around the house looking for my bag of ribbon, the box of glue...wrapping paper. balloons. i'm scrubbing the dried banana off the tray of ivy's highchair. i'm tired from running around after my wobbly new bambi walking baby. 

my baby that despises having her diaper changed but loves when you ask her where her eyes are. my floor is scattered with blocks, babies, and cheerios.

what i am doing tonight is so very different to what i was doing exactly a year ago on this very night. the night before this baby was born. 

what is it about knowing what you were doing at an exact moment that makes you kinda want to remember each moment...it's a weird feeling that i can not explain but one that i keep visiting. 

i've been absent from blog world...and i have missed it. okay...let me make a disclaimer...

i am having a hard time getting into the groove of writing here. i am struggling as i often do when i am so emotional about something. my brain has a hard time forming sentences and complete thoughts, so if you are reading my little ol' blog, i'll get there. just need a little practice. 

you see, sometimes i forget that people read what i share here at heididarwish.com. and although i write this blog as a way to document memories for our family, the friendships, support and love i have received here has been overwhelming, so for that...thank you, friends. i love the love. end disclaimer. 

a year ago tonight, i was scurrying around the house a little slower. i remember feeling exhausted and excited but extremely sad to say bye to the huge baby bump. 

i was searching for extra camera batteries, and bagging up little butter mint hospital room favors. i read the kids a book and kissed them goodnight twenty times and reminded them that after school the next day, they would have a baby brother or sister. i told them that they would always be my babies... we made more gender guesses before we sent them to their grandparents house for the night. 

 with a black sharpie and in my prettiest writing, i labeled champagne glasses with, "#3."

jeff kept telling me to go to sleep, "you need to be rested for tomorrow morning." 

rested to have a baby. i played the words over in my mind over and over again and thought, "i'm the luckiest person in the world right now!" 

i'm havin' a baby tomorrow. 

when the house was quiet and long after jeff went to bed, right about now...i ran a bath and talked to my belly. with only hours left, i wanted to soak in those last hours with the baby i could feel moving in my belly. i remember i pushed on a little bulge in my belly...guessing what body part it was and then loving that part so much it hurt. 

yes, tonight it very different and as much as i want to go back and relive those moments again...push my baby into the world and into my arms, i know i can not.

a year ago i was preparing to do the thing i love to do most in this world...deliver my baby. it's not just having a baby... it's the whole thing. it's the whole process. it's the registering, it's watching the epidural video...again, it's laying out little clothes, doctors visits, birth plan talks with the doc...it's the ceremony, the job of having a baby. i love it all.

and as i get further away from ivy's birth, it is so bittersweet, so tonight i shall bask in the warmth of nostalgia. it feel good here. 

i feel closer to those moments right now than i have in a year. 

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in between not having her and having...
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we have done a lot of living and loving and getting to know our ivy. 

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and i will play some catch up here in posting some photos of our past year, tonight i will leave it as it is. i will forever remember the night before her birth as a special time of just the two of us...getting ready to take on this big and beautiful world...together. 
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this year has flown by and as sad as i am to have this year be over, it was a good year. a really good year. it's gone to quickly...much to quickly but we all love our girl and getting to celebrate her first birthday tomorrow is just another little dream that is coming true. 


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our baby girl is growing up. happy birthday, ivy. we love you so, so much.
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(i wanted to add more photos but i am having uploading issues. pics too big. 
 i will post bday pics tomorrow.)

xo