Like my mother before me, I have these fantasies about coming home from work to find my children so overwhelmed with love and longing for me after being away from my arms all day that they behave like perfect little non-turds.
In a rather unfortunate confluence of timing, lack of wine, mofos honking their motherfreakin' horns outside the boys' room, and increasingly vocal crabbiness, bedtime turned into the latest edition of Mommy's Losing It. In my defense, my spawn happened to be particularly keyed up today - I don't think the MamaeHeTookMyBallMamaeHeHitMeMamaeI'mHungryMamaeMamaeMamaeMamaeMamae stopped from the moment I walked in the door until said spawn had fallen asleep, thus rendering voluntary speech impossible.
Trying to stay rational, balanced, patient, productive and constructive while the kidlets overuse and abuse their oxygen and my goodwill, and fight over one of, like, 379 Hot Wheels cars, is like trying to finish the IronMan Triathlon naked and barefoot while being chased by screaming ferrets.
Impossible.
So out went the sweet and soothing voice, and kerplooey went the loving arms. Up came the near-curse-words, the pursed lips, the grinding teeth, and yes, MeanMeanMommy. The monster who threatens unlikely things such as banning television; who promises to hurl fought-over-toys out the fourth-floor-of-the-brownstone-window; who puts the spawn to bed in such a huff they are left sniffing and snorking the runny noses that result from whimpering while Mamae freaks out.
It's like an outtake from "Leave it to Beaver," only the version where June Cleaver is played by Joan Crawford.
And so I head back to the drawing board of motherhood and hope to find a way to assuage the guilt and stop beating myself up. To find a way to make it up to them. Like being even more patient, and more sensitive, and having more compassion and understanding.
I'll probably just buy more Hot Wheels and let them watch more SpongeBob.
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