Crying Over Spilled Milk

Yesterday I wrote a post about mindful mothering and the ways I want to incorporate it into my life this year. I was all ready to hit the "publish" button. Well life is funny. I was a horrible mother this morning. I haven't had a full week alone with my kids since the beginning of December. This week back to our normal schedule has left us all a little tired and grumpy.

This morning before we even left the house I yelled at my children. They were both fighting me about everything. Breakfast, going potty, putting on clothes. Finally I had Jack and Grace sitting at the bottom on the stairs ready to put on socks and shoes and they both started throwing a huge fit about it (about the fifth such fit of the morning). I screamed at them about how naughty they were being. Told them I had had enough and stormed up the stairs and locked myself in the bathroom. Classy! I know you are all quite impressed with my parenting.

Well it gets worse. We do get out of the house. I drop Jack at the community center and head to the library with Grace. As we are leaving the library Grace lays down in the aisle and cries. I just walked around the corner and ignored her. After a few stares from the other patrons I went over, picked her up and carried her kicking and screaming out of the library.

Finally we all make it home. In the course of making and eating lunch three glasses of milk are intentionally turned over, Cheerios are intentionally crushed all over the floor and my clean sheets are pulled out of the dryer and dragged through the spilled milk. I yelled at my children again, put them in time out for the one hundredth time this morning and sat in the kitchen floor sopping up milk and feeling like a complete parenting failure. Mindful's ass!

So Miss Mindful, not gonna eat out, be a good wife and mother this year...is sitting in the floor ready to throw in the towel. I want to call Christian and tell him to get home and tend to his unruly children. I want to not fix another meal or clean another dish. I really just want to go to the local Mexican restaurant and drink a tall margarita. Oh it is easy to be mindful on the good days. The fun days. The days where we kick the ball in the park and everyone laughs and smiles and has a fun. It is much harder not to cry over the spilled milk.

I may just go get the margarita but I am not going to call my husband, who is at a job that probably makes him feel like his soul is being crushed by the man, to complain about my shitty morning. I guess that is something. Right?

Maybe tomorrow I will share my sweet mindful mothering post. But for now I am going to eat chocolate and read a book while my children spend a little time in their rooms.