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Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Journaling your real life thoughts and actions has a way of revealing what a wretch you are… and I’ve vowed to share it with the world. Brilliant.
Theme of the week: I am a sucky, sucky, sucky mom. How do I sucketh? Let me count the ways.
1. I yell. A lot.
2. Sometimes I don’t yell. I scream.
3. I don’t listen to my kids.
4. I don’t spend time with my kids.
Don’t believe me? Here are some actual excerpts from my daily writing:
Saturday, January 25, “Samuel once again freaked out when it was time to shut off the Wii and I freaked out at him. Screaming. I don’t want to hear any extra noise (my ears have been bothering me), so I yelled at him to stop. How will he learn control if I don’t exercise any?”
Wednesday, January 22, “A lot of times my kids talk and I don’t really listen. I give the obligatory ‘uh huh’, ‘really?’, ‘wow’ responses, but don’t really know what they’re saying.”
And then I see that thing going around on Facebook that says something like, “Always listen to the little things your kids say because if you don’t listen to the little things now, they won’t tell you the big things later.” GAHHHH, Mommy fail. Mommy guilt. Mommy sucks.
Of course, then there was this one; my personal favorite:
Thursday, January 23, “Going out to dinner with friends. When it was time to get the kids moving (running late of course), it was the usual craziness. Samuel yelling from the bathroom while Eli was trying to show me a magic trick, then another, and another. I cut him off to tell him to go pee and heard him growl in frustration, ‘Grrr! You never have time for me!’ ”
Ugh, he’s right. I put him off a lot to take care of other things. It’s bad enough to realize how terrible you are for yourself, but it’s even worse to know your kids know it too. And now, so do you.
Believe it or not though, the week wasn’t all bad. After that last little wake up call, I realized Eli needed some quality one-on-one time, so the very next night he and I went to Pizza Hut, did some grocery shopping, and ended the evening at Sweet Frog. I journaled about it the next morning.
Saturday, January 25, “Had a good night with Eli. He said several times, ‘I love spending time with you.’ Confirmation. Quality time is one of his love languages and I need to make a concerted effort to speak his language.”
Yes, this journey might be difficult as I discover my wretchedness, but it might be a blessing as well. I can not change what I do not see, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to see more than I imagined.
Now for your amusement, I’ll leave you with some pictures of our real, everyday life.
Apparently I got sidetracked on my way to the trashcan. Yes, that’s a dirty diaper I found on top of the dryer.
An angry moment when Mommy wouldn’t give her a cookie before lunch.
I saw this and thought he’d had an accident. I was wrong.
This was the real culprit. An open cup of OJ, upside down on the couch. Apparently it didn’t occur to him to tell me it had spilled.
