The Mother I Wish I Was

She's a go-getter, that mother in my dreams. She bakes cookies in her immaculately clean kitchen that looks like it came from between the covers of Home and Garden Magazine. She is an active member of the PTA, knows the names of all her kids teachers, friends, and her neighbors. She reads her two babies a story at night before she tucks them in, kissing their freshly washed heads that smell of Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo.


She's witty and funny. Hosts dinner parties, birthday parties, and the occasional backyard BBQ. Her older children laugh and tease with her, having an open and honest relationship based on mutual respect and genuine affection.


She always helps with homework, and remembers the capital of all fifty states without hesitation. While folding her crisp white sheets she gently breaths in the homey aroma of fabric softener. She is patient. She is kind. She is adored by her children....


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And now for a dose of reality. I am NONE of those things. I want to be. I wish I was. I try - when I'm not completely overwhelmed with my life - to be like the mother in my dreams. In all honesty however I am not exactly a go getter. And baking cookies? Fah-getta-bout-it! Oh, and that kitchen I see in my head? Well let's just say I'd be more likely to be showcased in Goodwill Weekly if they had one than Better Homes and Gardens. My decorating style is pretty much, "hey I can afford that" and whenever possible, "sure I'll take it if it's free!"


I've only been to a handful of PTA meetings and I've decided it's not my thing. The women are stuck up. It just feels like junior high school all over again. The popular kids reigning over the lowly band geeks who desperately just want to be included! No thanks... pass... I have precious little time, and I guess it makes me a bad mother to say that I have no desire to spend my evenings counting soup labels when I could be doing just about ANYTHING else.


Honesty time; While I know the names of my younger two kids' teachers I haven't a single clue what my two older kids (both in middle school) teachers names are. I haven't met a single one. They don't have conferences anymore, and I was working when the open house came around this summer. Is that a valid excuse? Perhaps... but most likely not.


I don't know all my neighbors, and honestly it's just not high on my to-do list. They seem nice. I wave when I see them. I just don't have the time or energy to care to make friends at this point. I leave at the butt crack of dawn for work, and come home exhausted at night. When my kids get a bath they get their hair washed with whatever I can find, and yes, once it was the dogs oatmeal shampoo. Hey - clean is clean right? And as a side benefit they were flea and tick free for up to 30 days.


Horrible, I know. So I might as well keep on confessing that I don't read bed time stories, by the time nine o'clock rolls around all I want is to crawl between the covers and escape into sleep. I'm more likely to say, "oh for the love of baby Jesus just go to bed!!!" than to sweetly whisper gentle wishes as I tuck them in. And for their own sake they better not get up ten times or I'm pretty much guaranteed to make ridiculous threats that involve gypsy slave labor camps.


I help with homework while doing a minimum of four other things. I'm the single mom of four kids... you don't get my undivided attention. It's not possible. For this I'm truly sorry, and I have immense amounts of maternal guilt, but there is nothing I can do about that. I don't know the state capitals, I doubt I ever did. Oh Google How I Love Thee...


Shall I go on? My house is always in a constant state of flux. We clean on the go, we eat on the go. I don't have fluffy towels and crisp white sheets. You grab a towel from the dryer before you hop in the shower, and if you're lucky it doesn't have a pair of underwear stuck to it from static cling. My mismatched sheets are also a Goodwill bargain, and they've never been described as crisp. Wrinkled and Slightly Damp is the usual way of things around here. I'm just thrilled when they don't smell like dog or sweaty kids.


I'm that mom, who just today took her kids to the fair and spent the day frustrated, annoyed, and head-achy. It was horrible. We didn't bond, we didn't laugh and ride the carousel with the wind in our hair. I was cranky and on edge. They were whiny and demanding. We left after four hours - 300 bucks poorer and with a migraine pulsing behind my eyes. I was impatient. I yelled. I feel terrible. They feel terrible. This was not a good day.


I just hope someday their insurance has mental health coverage for all the therapy my kids are going to need in the future.

There are days I want to run away from home...

It's not even that anything is particularly wrong. I'm just feeling this amazing pull to RUN. Run away, avoid reality and responsibility. Skip work, pack a bag and just disappear.

I don't want to tell anyone where I'm going, and I don't know where I would go anyway. Just fill up my gas tank and drive until I find someplace with no phone, no television.

No dishes, no sick kids, no dogs to feed, no bills to pay, no laundry, no bill collectors, no X, no ringing telephones.

Someplace warm. Someplace quiet. Someplace I can peel off all my dried up layers and lay raw and exposed to the warm air. Someplace I can just THINK or better yet, STOP THINKING. Stop worrying about money, the kids, the X, BLT, work, my parents, my BFF, my pathetic bank account, my uncolored roots and unmanicured nails.

Someplace I can just cry and not worry that it will upset the kids, or make BLT think there is something wrong. There isn't anything wrong between us.

I won't run... because I'm not a runner. I stuck it out 15 years with a man I didn't love because that's what I do. I stick... I make do. I cope and I tough it out.

And I love my kids. I love my job. I love BLT and my parents and even my semi-retarded dogs. I love the town I live in and the friends whom I'm blessed to have in my life.

But I'll dream, and I wonder, and I'll close my eyes and fight against that need to run. Because as good as running would feel - I know, deep down, that it doesn't hold a candle to making love to BLT late at night. To cooking dinner together and eating as a family outside on the patio with the kids. While it might feel good in the moment, in the long run I would hate myself and I would miss out on so many beautiful moments.

So instead of running away from home I'm running towards it. I know, in time this feeling will pass.

Being a grown up sucks sometimes

I get resentful occasionally that I'm forced to be the grown up all the time. In regards to the kids, I've always gotten all the ugly jobs, all the messy or unpleasant jobs. I've had to be the heavy, enforce the rules, have the hard talks. Even when I was married it was all up to me, so being a single mother hasn't changed that...but it sucks. Sometimes I actually hate being a mom. I know it's horrible to say, but I do. I love my kids with my whole heart, but I hate having to do things for their own good that they resent, and the way they can make me feel like total crap. It's a hard, hard job sometimes.


Well my 11 year old forced me into being the "mean mom" this weekend. All week I've been nagging for the pit that is Lady Bug's bedroom to be cleaned. I've given detailed instructions, I've given second chances, I made threats.


I told her on Thursday night in no uncertain terms, "Lady Bug, if you don't go clean your room I'm not taking you and your friends to the mall on Saturday for your birthday. No mall... no dinner at Red Robin. I swear this is your very last chance" I got a call on Friday - it was a half day at school and she was home by noon.



LB - Can I go to A's house to hang out?
Mom - Is your room clean?
LB - No
Mom - Then you have to clean your room and put your dirty clothes in the washing machine before you can go. Also, your grandmother went to a lot of trouble to make you a nice dinner and dessert for your birthday so you MUST, ABSOLUTELY MUST be home no later than 5pm.
LB - Okay mom, no problem

I get off work early and drive home to get Lady Bug. She's not at home... her room isn't clean. She doesn't answer her cell phone. 4o minutes later she finally comes home. We've missed our chance to get to Grandma's for dinner (it's an hour away) and I am so flaming mad I'm seeing double.

I call her cousin, and I have her call her friends. We cancel the birthday trip to the mall. I make her go up and finish cleaning her room while I stand over her. I make her call her Grandmother and apologize. I send her to bed early. I'm so, SOOOO angry that she put me in the position to have to take away something so special. I'm pissed as hell that so many people were inconvenienced. It was inconsiderate - not to mention dangerous. I had no idea where she was, and she didn't answer her cell, or call me to tell me she was running late. She lied to me, she didn't follow through with something I had been telling her to do for a week. She just disrespected me and our house rules one too many times.

I feel horrible. She cried, she was devastated. I feel mean and wretched. But I do know that it's not my job to be her friend all the time. It's my job to teach her that there are consequences when you don't do what you're told to do. That it's rude to leave people waiting for you, that if you are allowed the privilege of going to a friends house you are required to come home when I tell you to. Five means five o'clock.... not five fifteen, and sure as heck not forty minutes late with no call to let me know you're okay.

I mean, if I don't follow through when I make a threat how will she ever know I'm serious? If I can't influence her behavior with appropriate consequences when the child is 11 how do I do it when she's 15 and horny... good lord what a scary thought.

So I followed through... even though it's hard and I feel like utter crap. We ended up going over to grandma's house tonight instead, since she's gone to so much expense and trouble to get dinner put together with all her favorite foods, and she even had a special "Twilight" themed cake baked up for her with fancy blood red roses etc.

But that shopping trip is gone until after she's done being grounded. God help me I hope she's learned a lesson!