Parenting Fail: Mommies have a tantrums too

Confession IS good for the soul.

Last night I tried to put Green to bed earlier than the other kids. We have transitioned to all three kids sharing a room and that can make bedtime a little hectic. As it is I'm not good at bedtime. I'm tired, I'm sick of kids bickering, whining, asking questions, making messes, and my own selflessness. So after an HOUR AND A HALF of me sitting in the bedroom with Green and him repeatedly getting up, asking questions, needing drinks and laughing at any punishment I can think of, I basically give up. It is time for Pink and Blue to come to bed and so I give the 10 minute warning that it's time for bed. In this time I expect them to get drinks, change, use the bathroom etc. They all get to bed and it is quiet. WHAT!!!! Can it be?

Nope. I hear feet. I am going to blow a gasket.  It's more than I can take. I go up to discipline Green who I assume is causing the pitter patter and who do I see at the top of the stairs? Blue! 

The conversation goes something like this

"WHAT!!!!"
"Mom, I'm thirsty"
"Are you kidding me right now? Green is finally laying down, being still and quiet and you need a drink?!" I'm yelling, I admit it.
"Mom, I'm thirsty"
"To bad, you were supposed to get a drink before bed"

and I heartlessly head back downstairs.

Blue starts crying. "Man, I'm heartless, but the kid does need a drink"

So I stomp upstairs and grab the almost empty water bottle from Green's 30,000 drinks over the last two hours and literally throw it across the room at Blue's bed. Then the unthinkable happens. The lid hasn't been secured and I actually just threw water all over my child in a fit of rage. He starts crying out of pure shock, I'm half laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and half crying at how much I suck right now. I quietly apologize, hand him another water bottle and head downstairs. I still have to go up and remind Green to lay still and be quiet a few times and then pure silence. 

I quickly got online and confessed to two of my closest friends trying to ease the guilt and to have someone to laugh it off with. I really do feel awful, I took my frustration from Green out on Blue and acted so awful towards him, but one kind friend said "I know that very feeling."and the other said "It was water not acid, he'll dry."

Obviously there is a long list of ways I could have handled this situation differently and hindsight is 20/20. I have to remind myself that kids are resilient. This morning there was nothing said about it, Blue went to swim lessons without an obviously aversion to water so we're probably in the clear for water related PTSD and permanent emotional scarring. I got a good laugh at myself and a great reminder to calm it down a little. We are on day 6 of this new house and sleeping arrangement. There is plenty of time to figure it out and get good habits in place by the time the baby gets here. It also reminds me that maybe I should be a little more firm in insisting that Mr Fixit take a turn now and then to do bedtime.

Wanna hear a funny story?

Mr Fixit works nights. Sometimes, on Fridays particularly, he is up for 24+ hours straight and is very tired by the time he goes to bed. So we go to bed and he brought up a bowl of popcorn and an iced cold beverage from the fridge and snacked while I dozed off (yeah he eats in bed, but this isn't a "complain about Mr Fixit post". Really it isn't). Shortly after going to sleep I awake to said ice cold beverage soaking my back and the sheet underneath me. He had fallen asleep holding his drink and basically dumped it down my back. I jump out of bed and quickly change my top all while yelling at him in a very unladylike tone to "wake up and help me change the sheets". He is very groggy and has no idea what is going on. It takes him FOREVER to get moving as I pull out clean sheets, start soaking up the liquid and removing bedding. Being jerked awake by an icy drink is somehow much more shocking than the gentle realization that a child peed the bed beside you. It brings out the rage. Looking back on it now it's hilarious, then... not so much. I could see the potential for hilarity but maybe after a good, dry nights sleep.

On the plus side, now we have something new to laugh about and I can hang it over his head for the REST OF OUR LIVES.

Disclosure: I have also done this in my life, but it was room temperature water and it was before we were married so I was the only one affected.

It's no surprise that we are...

shell shocked and overwhelmed.

March 1 -we moved into our new house
March 14- we discovered an unplanned pregnancy
March 17-25 - trip for me and the kids to Michigan where we bring home a 9 week old Blue Heeler puppy
March 30 - our 4 yo daughter had a horrific burn accident that lead to 16 days in a burn unit

April 15 - we were told the house wasn't going to work out and we had to move again
April 16  - our daughter comes home from the hospital and our boys come back from MI

It has since been a blur of medical treatments, physical therapy, morning sickness, stress from living in a home your not welcome in, house hunting and life.

We've celebrated Green's 2nd birthday, our 9th wedding anniversary, my parents 30th wedding anniversary and Blue's 8th birthday. We bought a new, larger (HUGE) vehicle to accommodate the growing family and a popup camper. We've looked at numerous houses.

A few weeks ago on a Friday evening, after coming home on Tuesday from another 13 day vacation to Michigan, the pipes in the upstairs bathtub drain pipes burst during Friday night baths into the living room,  and onto  the carpet and the couch. I prayed a selfish and immature prayer basically stating that I'm sick of this holding pattern, my patience has worn out and my faith is getting thin. Several hours later Mr Fixit shows up and announced that he has a great lead on a house here in the valley.

So now we are moving. The house is tiny compared to the last two we have lived in and actually it's probably a little smaller than our Michigan home that we outgrew when Pink was born and we are happy. We've found we spend so much time taking care of our stuff, organizing our stuff, maintaining our stuff that we missed out on things we'd rather be doing. Mr. Fixit and I have been talking about this step for a few years but have never really made a concerted effort to make the changes we needed too.

Over the next few weeks we will be getting a large dumpster, taking things to a local thrift store that helps local missions (like Goodwill, but better), dropping stuff off to several different consignment stores, posting items on local Facebook garage sale sites, Ebay and Craigslist and moving whatever is left.

That being said, I am almost 6 months pregnant, we are in the middle of a July heat wave and we are actively homeschooling through the summer. It will be a slow move. I'm hoping to be done at the end of the month so we can enjoy what is left of the summer. That is one of joys of homeschooling, our summer goes well into September as we prefer camping after public schools has started and everything is less crowded.

Have you found yourself wondering...

what is that crazy family been up to?

Well a lot actually.

We bought the farm. Not legally yet, that part is still in progress, but we are living here at the new house and excited about the future. The house is older and has been empty for several years but a project is just what we were looking for. 4 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, around 3 acres of property, multiple out buildings including a 4 story barn and a pond.

View from our living room

4 story barn

Future tractor barn and wood shop, this is actually two different buildings

Future animal barn

My second child

Five years ago this week we "missed out on a baby". (Blue's term)

We had planned to expand our family. Mr Fixit had a steady job, I was ready to be a stay at home mom, we had a healthy 2 year old boy and we were looking for our first house so we could be closer to Mr Fixit's work. It was time.

The pregnancy although short was by far my hardest and when it came to an end at 9 weeks we were all devastated. I took a week off of work to recover and grieve. A life we planned, prayed for and dreamed of was gone. I went to be with my mom and closer to Mr Fixit. Even in loss and sadness God blessed us. While I was off work, a house went on the market that our realtor said we HAD to see. I went, later returning with my husband and father and it ended up being the home we would live in for the next few years The home where I would give birth to my next two children. A home that was a gathering place for my family of origin to celebrate birthdays, Christmases, Sabbaths and each other. A few months later we were expecting a baby that we now know as Pink.

Mr Fixit and I don't talk about the baby we "missed out on" very often but we both thought that baby was a girl. She has a name and she was my second child. To honor that life we now sponsor a little girl that was born September 2008, the month our baby was due. She is a sweet 4 year old who lives in Ghana. I treasure every letter and picture she sends me.

I'm so thankful for that life we never knew and even the loss. I'm grateful for the home we quickly outgrew. I'm thankful for Pink. I'm thankful for the empathy I can feel when other women have a miscarriage. We don't forget those babies we "miss out on", but we carry on silently thinking about what might have been, of due dates that came and went, miscarriage dates and blue eyes we never looked into. Statistics say that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in loss and this was true in my case.