Some days you just have nothing left

Do you all have days where we just can't give anymore? Days where you find yourself snapping and yelling and generally losing your mother-flipping mind? Because I do. Today in particular was one for the books. It wasn't a particularly bad day to begin with but somehow my will to parent calmly slipped away at an alarming pace as the day wore on. 

To begin with, my youngest, Josie, has started her phase of very, very loud talking followed by repeating everything she says many times until she achieves her goal. (Usually she's attempting to con me into letting her watch a tv show or consume a sugar-laden treat.)This morning she woke up yelling everything she said just for fun, no treats in mind. It was horrifying to wake up to that kind of energy. I should have know that things were going to get ugly.

Ben and Gemma headed off to school with little event and then Josie had gymnastics in the late morning so we kept on trucking and went to class. It was great, Josie had fun, only one weird new kid got aggressive. I called it a success. And then the teacher gave the kids valentines in the form of robots constructed out of applesauce, a juice box, and raisin boxes. Obviously it was very kind of the teacher, and despite the fact that I knew it would make my kid have the most giant poop of all time, we excitedly accepted it and I put it in my purse. Little did I know that the juice box punctured the applesauce and it was filling my purse as we left the gym. 

We got in the car and when I tried to grab Josie's sippy to hand to her, it was covered in applesauce. Fun. The entire ride home, Josie was asking me (very loudly still) if she could "have her applesauce please? And could she just have a taste of her applesauce now because she didn't want to wait to get home?" I tried in vain the entire way home to explain that the applesauce spilled and was currently covering the inside of my purse and now the floor of the car where that bastard robot was now laying starring at me so smugly with his stupid googly eyes.


The offending snack robot

Here's the thing, again, nothing horrible happened today, it just taxed me beyond what I expected. Josie was as she always is and Ben and Gemma were pretty great. I just couldn't take it today. Gemma had a neighbor friend playing after school and they were SO LOUD and wild. I get it. It's winter and it's hard to stay inside so much. I was just trying to find peace in folding laundry in the basement ALONE and listening to This American Life on my headphones and Gemma and her friend came down to talk to me. Then they they started jumping on the beanbags. I had to ask them to leave. I wanted to scream.

Eventually Gemma's friend left (leaving a trail of toys and dress-up clothes in her wake that I had to ask an eye-rolling Gemma to clean up) Colin came home and needed dinner and he had to leave for an event almost immediately. The kids needed dinner. Josie was bugging Ben and Gemma so they sent her upstairs telling her that she should ask me for a cookie. (This is a thing they do. It's awful. As a youngest child, I resent it. Last time she came upstairs asking for ice cream and I was so confused until the big kids fessed up. I gave in tonight and gave her a cookie and informed Ben and Gemma that if they do that again it'll be serious consequences.)Then I cried in the kitchen and Colin hugged me and left for the night. 

I thought, I'll reset. I'm going to read some Harry Potter to the kids during dinner and turn this around. Gemma barely ate because she doesn't like food, Josie barely ate because she does everything Gemma does, and Ben ate everything. Bless him. By the time bedtime rolled around I was snapping like a gosh darn mouse trap. I got Josie in bed and did her whole routine and as I was saying "see you in the morning, I love you, goodnight" in the correct tone for the 15th time, she said "mommy, I think I need something." I lost it. I said 
"I have nothing left. I can't give you anything else, I have nothing left." She was so puzzled "what's nothing left?" I said, "I have no happy left in me to give you. I'll see you in the morning, I love you, goodnight." I left her feeling really crappy as she said to herself "no happy left?" over and over. 

I felt like a failure. And then I realized that I'm allowed to have bad days. Everyone else does! My kids might need a great mom, and they have one, but I am a human. I will never be able to give them a childhood without a bad day because people aren't perfect. I am not sure when I started beating myself up about being human but somewhere along the line, I did. Here's the thing, I'm not wallowing in self-pity and I know that I just need a little time to myself and maybe some wine. Everyone needs space. That's actually the hardest part of being a mom. It's not the juggling of household tasks and endless messes and grumpy kids. For me at least, it's the lack of personal space. It's the sweet toddler who loves me so much that she follows me to the bathroom and places her hand on my thigh while I pee. It's the complete and utter consumption of my personal reserves and emotional energy by other people. I think I figured out part of why are moms so overtaxed today. Because we want to give our kids the world and we end up giving them everything we have, including that which we needed for ourselves.

So, with that realization in mind, I am going to go take a bath in silence and pray that some of that emotional reserve fills back up. Peace out!

Today I Accidentally Purchased $10 in Powerball Tickets

Today I decided to throw some money in the garbage and buy a Powerball ticket. You may only have a 1 in 294,000,000 chance at winning per ticket purchased but you have zero chance if you buy no ticket. I need 1.5 billion dollars in my life. For real. I got to the store and a very slow old woman was using the machine and a special needs employee on a ladder was in front of the other machine. He was washing the top of it. Why today, sir? Why today?

I have never purchased a lottery ticket before so I didn't know that I had to have cash. This employee was just talking my ear off while I'm waiting in line. ("The thumbprint scanner on the time clock is a piece of crap. It gives a real, real hard time to the lady who works in floral every time she clocks in. HAHAHA! Isn't that a riot?") I was gracious, I replied and smiled. The universe was making me earn this damn lottery ticket. Finally I got to the machine and realized I was going to have to get cash in order to buy a ticket and I had just wasted all of my time and patience. Thanks, Ladder Man.

I told Josie that we were going to get a doughnut before we left for the store anyway so I went to the doughnut case and let her pick one out. I was feeling fancy so I got one too. We checked out and got cash back at the register. Cash in-hand, I went back to the Powerball machine to try and buy my ticket without looking like a total idiot because I literally have no idea what I'm doing. 

I put the $10 bill in there thinking that I would buy two tickets and then get the rest of my money back. I got my first ticket! I'm thinking "Fun! Just one more ticket and then I'm outta here! Doughnut, here I come!"

Now picture this: To my left 15 feet away is "playland" where you can leave your child under the care of a  state licensed employee for an hour while you shop. There's a bracelet system and everything so it's very safe. Playland isn't inherently bad, I just don't like the kids of strangers touching my kids. The kids always ask to go in there and I tell them no "because of germs." Every time. I have a major fear of vomit called emetophopia. I do not like to vomit and more than that, I really do not like to see vomit. It makes me very angry and I get panic attacks if I am around it. I can't control this. My kids don't get to go to indoor play zones. Just call me "Mom of the Year."

Anyway, Powerball ticket numero uno was in my hand and I was going in for the second one when I heard the sound of water being poured onto the floor. I looked to my left and an approximately five-year-old child is standing there in front of mother-flipping-playland puking all over the floor. Just puking and puking and puking. 

He was opening his stupid mouth and just letting it pour out onto the floor and his stupid mom wasn't even trying to catch it or anything. I heard her say "oh my." That's all. I wanted to throat punch her. There were literally THOUSANDS of plastic bags within mere feet of this woman and she just allowed him to do his best impression of a human water pump. Puke. Puke. Puke. "Oh my..." Being a full-on crazy person, I started sweating profusely and having a massive panic attack. The shakes took over. I had no idea how to get my money out of the friggin machine and so I began rapidly hitting the button to get whatever the amount of tickets $10 buys in my hand because I want to get the f&%@ out of there. (Five. It was five Powerball tickets.) I also broke my New Year's resolution to swear less. I said all of the bad words. All of them. The smell hit me and I was at my state of full-panic. My throat started to burn form the stench of my actual worst fear and I was struggling not to gag.

I never thought that my day would involve accidentally purchasing $10 worth of Powerball tickets as clumsily as possible while a child near me repeatedly vomited on the floor of the grocery store with no parental intervention whatsoever. As I was turning to leave the scene, this hulking country boy in full-body camo was standing in my way. His jaw was slack as he stared openly at this child who was standing in a grocery store and doing a live performance art piece in which he impersonated an Artesian well. "That kid is throwing up," he astutely pointed out to me. "Yes he is," I said. "He started as soon as I bought my Powerball tickets. You think it's a bad omen?" I was laughing a little too fast and at a pitch so high that I'm not comfortable discussing at this time. I was shaking like a nervous, two-pound poodle when the door bell has been rung.  

He looked at me and said "YUP!" 

I threw my doughnut in the trash on the way out.

And that, friends, is the story of how I bought my first lottery ticket.