I just had to carry LJ home the 3 blocks from the playground, flailing and screaming, under my arm in a football hold. She’s almost 3, so carrying her under my arm like a sack of potatoes not only LOOKS ridiculous, but it’s really, really hard. She’s fucking heavy, and since I haven’t been to a gym in a thousand years, I’m pretty weak. In my other hand I was carrying her mini-kick scooter and her owl backpack. She shrieked the ENTIRE walk home, and that’s what made me keep her in the football carry: I felt like she didn’t deserve a normal, loving hold. I wanted to get home. She refused to ride her scooter or walk. I was mad. Screw it.
I snapped.
Why did I snap?
Is it because she cried one thousand times about miniscule things at the playground and made me feel embarrassed? Because I felt like every single other mom was watching, judging and gossiping about my shitty parenting skills? Maybe.
Is it because she refused the goldfish I brought for her snack? Because for some reason I was too lazy today to pack her a better, tastier, healthier snack: and she FREAKED OUT? Maybe.
Is it because despite my writing a post about wusses: my helicopter parenting has created a gigantic wuss that is terrified of wiggly bridges, slides and now swings? A little girl who can’t keep up when all the other kids are playing chase and sprinting up and down the slides because she’s afraid? A little girl who can’t climb as well as the other kids because when she was a toddler I spent too much time hovering like a lunatic, worrying that she’d fall and crack her head open? A sweet little girl who wants SO BADLY to play with everyone she meets, but ends up getting left behind and it’s totally MY FAULT? Maybe.
Is it because it’s been raining for the past 3 days, and we’ve been trapped in our teeny little apartment doing 500 craft projects and building 35 horse farms? Do I sometimes feel a little guilty about raising her in this little urban apartment? Where our only personal outdoor space is the cracked front walkway and stoop? Where we spend most of our time in ONE ROOM? Maybe.
Is it because I look at the blogs of other moms, like Amanda Blake Soule, who is effortlessly and beautifully raising 4 kids (with another on the way), along with chickens, pigs, cats and dogs… and it makes me feel like a loser? All this while maintaining her blog, publishing books, baking pies, knitting countless sweaters, pickling things, and being all around crazy awesome? Maybe. She made an entire quilt with her daughter in one day (ONE DAY!!) because they were BORED. When we’re bored, I pop in Toy Story 3. I’m not pickling shit. The apartment is impossible to keep clean: I swear there was just a dog hair in a cup I took out of the highest cabinet. Stay at home mom FAIL.
I only have one kid. One. I’m not working right now. I have a precious daughter that I would lay down in traffic for, and a supportive husband. We’re all perfectly healthy (despite my intimate knowledge of the local ER). Who the hell am I to complain about ANYTHING? Both my sister and sister-in law are single moms with full-time jobs, while I’m just an asshole crying about my messy apartment and the fact that my kid didn’t want to eat fish-shaped snacks today. It’s pretty pathetic, I know.
I’m exhausted… but I don’t feel like I have a right to be.
Call the waaahmbulance, mama needs some wine and a girl’s night out.
Or a Xanax.
Or a housekeeper.
Or all of the above.
This stay at home mom shit is hard, yo.
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