Floating Bubbles

All I could think about yesterday afternoon was coming home to my kids.  I couldn't wait to walk in the door and have Henry greet me with his enthusiastic, "Hi Mom!" and tell me how great his day had been.  I couldn't wait to turn on our warmers and get the house smelling like mulled cider and all things fall.  It's super cozy when those things are going.  I couldn't wait to take the brisk walk to the bus stop and get Callie off the bus and see her face smiling at me when she noticed I was there waiting, like I do every day. 

The school day was long (and I'm talking about mine, I am a reading interventionist and work in a school).  It started out rough with my raging head/chest cold and the entire day I was dragging, and hacking and coughing.  The students were alright, but having less patience than usual due to my illness, made it difficult for me to push on through.  This was just part of the reason that the day felt long and as usual I just couldn't wait to check in with my own children and just BE home.

As I walked in my front door, I was not greeted how I normally am by my son.  Instead he was at the table doing math homework and he started immediately to scream and eventually cry about the injustice of how he had all this work to do.  The real issue was the fact that he also had evening obligations and with his homework time, he knew he would be going straight from school, to homework and then off to archery and potentially back home for more homework before getting ready for bed and it had him STRESSED.  Together we worked on an hour of homework (and frustration began) when I had to go and meet Callie at the bus stop.  

I met her at the bus stop and she immediately told me that her wrist hurt and she had all kinds of homework to do and catch up on because she had missed school Tuesday morning with her doctor's appointment.  She came crashing through the front door, plopped down and began with her own frustrations and attitude.  I tried to remain calm, this was not what I was expecting or looking forward to when I got home from work, but I knew I had to help alleviate some of this stress.  I sat down between the two of them, thinking that I would "suffer" along with them and this would help.  Long story short, I suffered for sure, but it did not exactly help.  Henry worked on the math for almost 2 hours when it was time to go to archery.  Callie wrote and wrote and wrote until her arm was throbbing in pain, yet we still had work to complete.  Henry began to refuse to go to archery until his work was done, but we let him know while it is important to power through sometimes, it is just as important to know when to walk away.  Jon took him to archery.  Callie and I stayed home and while I began to make dinner, she plugged away on her work.  She complained, tossed me attitude and threw a couple of fits that were directed at me, even though the homework was the real frustration.  I took it all in and lost my cool.  I raised my voice at her and told her I didn't appreciate this treatment.  She just yelled back and it blew up in my face anyway.   

See, this is MY ship.  I am the captain of this ship.  If I show frustration and weakness, the ship's crew loses faith in my leadership.  The ship may begin to sink if I am not a strong leader all the time.  I tried hard to stay a strong leader and offer support and be a good example, but I just couldn't stay strong any more.  After a day of working with frustrated children at school and to come home to my own frustrated children at home, I just had a moment of weakness.  I didn't want to be here.  I wished I hadn't come home at all.  I felt unappreciated as I made dinner for people who didn't care and didn't show me the respect I thought I deserved.  I wanted to cry and walk away and all I could think about was, 

"How could I have looked forward all day to coming home to THIS?"

Mom's aren't exactly supposed to feel this way.  While it isn't realistic to be "strong" all the time and never show weakness, most parents can agree that it IS what is expected of us.  At that time, Jon called Callie on the phone and they had a conversation.  Callie told him to stay away because if he came home he would just hear me yelling at her.  Not exactly what I had been going for, but the truth from the mouth of my babe.  It didn't matter that my yelling was a reaction to her attitude, I am supposed to be teaching her how to deal with her emotions.  I was struggling to deal with my own.  All I could think about now was that I wanted to take a hot bath, in a dark and quiet bathroom.  No lights.  No sound.  Bubbles and hot water as hot as I could stand it and all ALONE.

We got things figured out.  I finished dinner and Callie and I ate together.  She apologized as did I.  Jon came home and ate dinner with us.  I went up to take a bath.  As I lay in the tub I thought about the day's events and where things went wrong.  Mostly I feel like it all went wrong when I failed to be able to find anything positive about the day.  I laid in that bath and watched the bubbles float into islands around me and I realized that instead of digging deep and finding the good, I froze and felt sorry for myself.  My anxiety got the best of me, like it has many times before, and I completely shut down.   I laid in the silence of the bathroom and I thought about the day and what positives I could find there, despite the feelings of despair I actually felt inside.  

I spoke out loud and said, 

     "Thank you for this tub full of hot water.  Thank you for the food I had at the ready to make everyone a healthy dinner.  Thank you for this house with a bathroom far enough away that I hear only quiet, I needed that right about now.  Thank you for the flickering candles that are helping me to relax and remember to breathe.  Thank you to the school that challenges my children in ways that are healthy and good for them and make them stronger.  Thank you for a husband who realizes when I need him to step in and give me a break.  Thank you for the fleece pajamas I am going to put on when I get out of this tub.  Thank you for these 20 minutes to myself, in the silence, that is more time alone than many of the other moms out there will be able to take today.  Thank you for this family that drives me crazy but only because I love them so much."

I laid in quiet a couple more minutes and then heard the boys come in the front door.  Henry sounded much happier than he had when he stormed out just a couple hours before and I heard him immediately ask,

     "Where's Mom?"

Which made me smile and swell with pride, because despite the drama of the afternoon, he still wanted and needed to know where his biggest fan was as soon as he got home from his archery practice.