Yesterday, I was not ok. 

How does one get through a day when they are not ok with a 4 year old and an 8 month old? 

Well, I felt like the day would never end. It felt like bad news after bad news was piling on top of me, like a toddler hitting me in the head with a pillow. Some of that may have been going on as well, and I was gritting my teeth to not just completely lose it. I was swinging wildly between the verge of tears and wanting to scream my head off, but instead, I said nothing. I said relatively little all day, actually. I think I stared a lot. I answered questions with fewer words than usual.

How I got to that point is a pretty long story, but the short version is that I’m making some big choices these days, and there aren’t any easy answers. I know many people go through times like these. I’m just not handling it very well. Also, there’s a pandemic. WTF is wrong with this world? 

It was a cussing kind of day. Moms need to keep their sh*t together. I was kind of failing, and Mr. Observant-when-he-feels-like-it 4 year old knew something was up. He asked me repeatedly if I was having a bad day. One time he asked me if I was crying. I, miraculously, was not crying at that moment, so I got to say no to that one, which oddly made me feel a little better. Mom’s not crying. We must be ok. 

It’s days like yesterday that make me feel trapped as a mom. What I really needed was to go for a walk. Or a run. Or to cry alone. I wanted to walk out of a room without anyone following me. I wanted to be able to focus on one problem at a time. I wanted space to think. I got none of those things, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just couldn’t happen. Clothes needed to be put on, lunches needed to be made, work calls couldn’t wait, but my anxiety had to be put aside. 

I thought a lot today about how they say kids won’t necessarily remember the specific things you do, but they’ll remember your overall demeanor. The implication is that they’ll remember if you were happy or not, so buck up buttercup because those kids need a cheerful face to remember during coronavirus time. (That sentence would’ve had a lot more cuss words in it if I didn’t know my dad would be reading this later.) But what if I am a real human being who is sometimes unable to keep a lid on my actual human emotions? What if my kids see me struggle and learn that I’m not always ok? Will they think I’m weak and not listen to me? Maybe, if they’re psychopaths… Or maybe they will start to learn that their mom is a human being like they are. Maybe it’s ok to be a little bit not ok in front of them sometimes. I mean, he’s 4. I’m not going to ask him for advice or anything. But don’t I want my son to know that it’s ok to admit if he’s not ok? 

When the older one was an infant, I cried in front of him, holding him, rocking him. ALL. THE. TIME. Thankfully, infants remember nothing about what giant wrecks their parents are as first-time parents. He might remember this one though. I cried a little rocking the younger one before his nap, which felt sort of freeing, like the early days of only having one child. Obviously things get more complicated as they get older. We can’t be raw and act as unhinged as we may feel in front of them. Parents or adults filling that role in kids’ lives need to be a stabilizing influence for kids, a consistent force and guide for how to navigate difficult life situations. 

So I didn’t lose my head yesterday. I kept it together until bedtime. Then I ate 9 cookies and took some deep breaths. Pretty good ending to the day, really.