I'm Not Cut Out For This Shit

I love my children as much as the next mother, but some days I don’t think I’m cut out for this shit.

I just don’t have another argument in me about where missing shoes have gone, how it’s time to brush teeth, screen time or why it’s wrong to cheat at Candy Land and kill bugs.

I don’t want to pack a healthy lunch and separate snack, or double check that homework has made its way to a backpack.

I don’t want to make six trips to the car with arms full of kid gear or rush off to carpool or karate lessons or the library or the grocery store for the ninth time this week.

I don’t want to pretend I know the answer to another question I don’t know the answer to.

I don’t want to separate lights from darks and scold myself when I discover there is still a finished load in the washer from last week.

I don’t want to step on one more Lego.

I don’t want to be spit up on, make or clean bottles, change a nasty-ass diaper, or dig peas or some other unidentifiable green goop out from underneath my fingernail.

I don’t want to hear fussing, whining, or crying.

I’d like to learn to say yes more than no, find more patience within myself, and stop all the yelling. I’d like to be able to hear my own thoughts over the chaos.

I know I should appreciate my children after years of battling secondary infertility. I know I should savor these moments, while they are small. I knew going in that motherhood wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I knew there would be days like these.

Most of the time, I love being a mom. I enjoy the daily tasks and grimy little faces beaming up at me with cuteness and curiosity. But not today.

I don’t want to be a mom today.

Today, I want peace and quiet, the chance to reboot, the TV remote all to myself followed by an energizing nap. I want to enjoy a shower and not worry about the 20 ways the infant crawling around my bathroom can harm herself. I want to look at myself long and hard in the mirror and say to the woman trying her best staring back at me, “You’re a good mom and this was just a tough day.”

And more than anything, I want to believe it.

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