Momma Struggle Bus?

Yes, baby, momma's riding the struggle bus.  More like was on it, riding along, coping fine, and then I fell off, it ran me over and then a bigger, more struggly bus hit me while I was trying to get up.  *Insert heavy sigh here*

Being a mom is hard.  Like really super the hardest.  I guess I'd be willing to bet being a parent in general is hard, but Bob makes it look really easy as he is ridiculously good at it, so I just assume being a mom is harder, although I know that to not be logically true.  Anyways...I get it, you know, why otherwise fairly well adjusted adults become alcoholics.  The secret is 2 year olds.  I think it's the under lying cause of most addiction in fact.  It's going to be the cause of mine at least.

I had literally two and half hours to get through between the time I got home from work and Bob left for work until I could put said two year old to bed, and somehow she managed to break me in those 2.5 hours.  Not just kinda break me either, like kill my soul and question my chosen path in this world break me.  In 2.5 hours my sweet little Addelynn managed to knock over 8 oz of freshly thawed breast milk (that's like worth 13,673 euro's I believe) for her crying sister, climb onto me while I was feeding said sister and SIT ON her belly, yes 2 year old on top of four month old's belly, get mad at me that she was not going to be allowed to use her infant sister as a trampoline or slide, trip over a full potty chair while getting down, resulting in pee splashing everywhere and then run away from me giggling when I asked to come to me so that I could clean her up.  She then proceeded to punch the dog in the face Floyd Mayweather style and laugh hysterically.  When I told her that we use gentle hands and that if she was going to keep hurting the puppy she was going to go in the time out she again wound up and punched the damn dog!  I hauled her to the time out corner while she dropped to her knees in dead weight LAUGHING.  Yes, laughing, I am convinced she was possessed by demons tonight.  Of course as I was taking her to the time out, I stepped on one of her 4823 blocks strewn all over the entire living room resulting in near stepping on a Lego pain.  We got to the time out and as I was telling her to stand up and face the corner, she grabbed block number 4822 and chucked it at the wall.  I was DONE, and instinctively spanked her bare little butt and said "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"  After some crying and 120 seconds I called her out of the corner to come talk about what happened.  I pulled her up onto my lap to show her that I completely still loved and adored her, but she cannot hit the puppy and throw blocks.  Well, that was my intention anyway, however, when I got her to my lap I realized that she was soaking wet and not wearing any underwear anymore.  I asked her where her undies were and she pulled soaking wet undies out from under the chair.  WTH?!  You've been potty trained for a while now, but now we're all of a sudden going to say to hell with it, pee in them and then HIDE THEM under my leather recliner?  Ok, cool kid.  Cool.  I texted Bob telling him that I was struggling and I didn't know what was up with our kid tonight.  He just responded "Breathe."  Good idea.  I proceed to make myself a salad and of course she climbs in my lap to share my garden of goodness despite the fact that her and I both know she's not going to like it because she hasn't liked lettuce the 53 other times she's insisted on trying it.  But, I let her anyways.  She gets a hard boiled egg piece and chews it up a bit and then SPITS IT BACK ON TOP OF MY SALAD?!?  What are you doing child?!?  No!  I told her we would no longer be sharing mommas salad to which she sensibly responded by SLAPPING the top of my salad, slapping it, dressing and all, slapped all over us.  "Addelynn why are you being dumb?"  Yup.  You read it right, mother of the year, just asked my two year old why she was dumb.  Thank God she has no idea what that word means as I am not always acing mothering this hard and referring to her as dumb, just on this particularly fantastic night my best qualities are really shining.

I wipe her up and she is now noticing that her normally very patient mother has started to crack and doesn't know how much she can take.  She gets off my lap and looks at me and I kid you not, says "Momma struggle bus?"  Ha!  Yeah kid, I'm the one on the struggle bus!  You're the driver though, so I guess we're in this together.  If you think your kids aren't listening or don't understand things, you're super wrong.  When she's having a hard time, we will take her out of the situation quite often and ask her what's up, and try to help her identify what's wrong by telling her that she seems to be riding the struggle bus and we'd like to help, lol.  Clearly she was doing the same for me this evening.

We get all her blocks picked up and she actually helps quite a bit and I ask her to march on upstairs and she joyfully does so.  I get her upstairs and onto the changing table and my normally not super affectionate child says "Momma hug?"  I have instantly gone from thinking this may be the day I end her, to a broken heart realizing that she's not entirely sure her momma loves her anymore.  I snatched my naked little girl up and hugged her and felt all the waves of a thousand oceans of guilt wash over me while pushing back the tears.  We got her jammies on and sat down in her rocking chair to finish our nightly routine.  It normally starts with a book, but she changed it up and said "Momma burp me?"  This has been something new that she's started since Josie's arrival and she has seen me feed her sister.  She breaks this out when she is feeling sad and wants to be held against your chest like a baby.  I put her against my chest, covered her in her blanket, started to rock her in the dark and began to sob.  Like really, really sob.  As I rocked my sweet peanut and cried she twirled the pieces of my hair that had fallen out of my awesome mom bun and softly said "All better momma, all better.  It's ok momma, all better."

Part of me felt like I shouldn't show her that I was so broken tonight, but the other part of me knew that we both were, and we needed to heal together.  I had all the thoughts, about being an awful mother 'cause surely good mothers who are against spanking don't slap their bare babies bottom and ask them why they are dumb, to thoughts that maybe I don't have the patience to raise kids without effing them up.  Logically I know this is all not accurate, but man, tell that to my heart.  I had the thought that maybe I shouldn't have more kids, 'cause clearly this one is all I can handle, to the thought that it has to be something I am doing wrong as her momma to cause her to act out like this!

Being a mom is the hardest thing I have ever done.  What?  How could that freaking be possible?  I survived growing up with five siblings and a blended family, I graduated college, again and again and again, I started a career and changed it and changed it back again.  I have served in disaster zones and been maced and took a taser for the full ride.  I have fought the battle of depression and anxiety and came out on top.  I have fought for my marriage and rode that out through the deepest valleys and I have given birth naturally.  I have watched my step-mom fight cancer, watched her decline and watched her take her last breath.  I have built homes and helped people rebuild their lives.  I have done all of that...HOW ON EARTH CAN KEEPING A TWO YEAR OLD ALIVE be the hardest thing I have ever done?  This, this right here, staying home 90% of the day, watching "the choo choo movie" and helping my little girl cook fake peas, should be the easiest days of my life.  Never did I know it would challenge me to my core, question myself and wonder if I was truly going to make it out of this without being her answer to "Tell me what brought you to therapy?"

We rocked, I cried, she hair twirled and we healed our night together.  I put her down and she said her prayers "Now lay me, down sleep, pray Lord, soul keep, die wake, soul take.  Amen!"  I came down stairs and started to put my own disaster zone affectionately referred to as my home back together and I prayed.  I mopped and I prayed, I scrubbed dishes and I prayed and I did load after load after load of laundry, while I prayed.  Asking, Lord!  "What is going on with me?"  I haven't struggled like this in years.  I've been crabby and short and almost never ever cry, what is going on?  Then it hit me...the starting point of what feels like one really hard month...OH YES!  The day someone took all my lug nuts off my vehicle and tried to kill me and my family.  There's that.  Turns out, I'm still super struggling with that.  Apparently so much so that my 2 yo noticed.

Anyways, there isn't a huge epiphany to this post, other than to say that being a momma is really hard, and I didn't ever think that it would challenge me this much.  I didn't know that it would at times break me and at other times be everything that I needed.  I love my girls more than anything in the world and wouldn't change a thing...but some days...Im on the struggle bus.  I also am super sorry to anyone in my life who Ive been short and snotty to over the last month.  I've noticed and I apologize.  My life was sorta rocked this month and I'm having a hard time getting back on the horse I guess.