Mom Life is Hard
This is a story for all the moms who lose their shit from time to time. Life can be overwhelming at times and that’s okay. All we can do as moms is try to learn from the situation now and be better for next time.
Everyone has a limit, and I reached mine yesterday. The funny part is my life the past 6 weeks have been very hectic, but it wasn’t until things seemed to slow down that I finally seemed to reach a tipping point.
It started Friday afternoon after work. My husband got pinned and officially promoted. It was a lot of fun and cool to be there for him. We came home after and I got ready for an 8-mile run. I had told him that our oldest had not had a nap yet except for maybe twenty minutes in the car before his promotion so she would need a nap soon.
He said okay, and got the couch ready for both of them to lay down while I finished getting ready for my run.
I took off for a toasty Friday afternoon run listening to some country music to keep my mind busy. It was warm but tolerable. I got back to the house to find my almost three-year-old still up with bags under her little eyes relentlessly watching Cocomelon with my husband sleeping on the couch next to her.
Instantly, I am annoyed. Like super annoyed, but it’s fine and by fine I mean it’s girl fine.
We didn’t have any big plans for the evening so I figured whatever, we can deal with a tired toddler. She kept watching her show while I quickly rinsed off in the shower.
I got out hoping to eat what would have been my lunch even though it was 4 pm, but my toddler needed all the things.
I got frustrated and raised my voice. I told her to go sit down, watch her show, and let me eat for two seconds. I was reaching critical mass and needed to eat. I was getting lightheaded and my annoyance with my husband was starting to overflow as he still lay there napping despite my toddler’s cries and my very audible frustration.
My toddler sits down after having a mini-meltdown as I am warming up food when the baby wakes up from her nap.
DAMN IT, I think out loud and angrily storm down the hallway to go get her. I feed, change, and get her situated to play on the ground before returning to my now cold, warmed-up food. I heated it up again only to have my toddler come into the kitchen saying she wanted some too. So between her, the baby who has now crawled into the kitchen, and me, we sat on the floor in the kitchen eating MY pizza.
My hangry levels started to reduce, but my annoyance continued to grow as my husband had yet to wake up from his nap. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you now when he decided to wake up amidst the chaos of me trying to solo manage an overtired toddler and a 10-month-old.
I believe it was shortly after the baby had peed on the floor.
All I can say is mom life is hard and yesterday was a bad day.
The baby had the beginnings of a diaper rash and I was trying to let her booty air out when she peed on the floor. I cleaned up the mess and bathed her. She loves baths and because of that, she gets rather adventurous in the tub crawling back and forth and back and forth. To be honest it stresses me out. I seriously sit there with my arms out waiting to catch her if she dunks her face in the water. It rarely happens, but I am always on the ready.
But then I have my toddler who always wants to be involved with the baby so of course she’s breathing down my neck the whole time I gave her sister a bath. Eventually, my toddler dropped the baby’s pacifier in the dumpster fire of grossness in between the toilet and the vanity. Again, such a small thing, but I’m living on the edge of fiery anger at the moment.
Again, mom life is hard and yesterday was a bad day.
So again, I lost it on her. I yelled at her to get out of the bathroom. Currently, I am overstressed and overwhelmed and I have had it for the evening. She starts to cry and I instantly feel bad, but I can’t do anything about it because I have a crazy baby doing laps in the bathtub.
I believe it was at some point after this that my husband woke up because once he did, I did not move an inch the rest of the night. I sat on the ground in a heap of anger with a blanket and my phone feeling stupid tired after a week of work and running 8 miles a few hours ago. My husband never said a word.
Shortly after my husband got the last kid to bed, I decided to go to bed. It was a little before 8 pm and a long night of rest sounded great.
However, the baby had other plans. She proceeded to wake up at 9:30 pm and then again shortly after midnight. The first time, I was like alright she must be hungry because she rarely wakes up at night anymore. I got her a bottle because I knew I didn’t have much of anything in the boobs from her eating before bed; but when she woke up again at midnight, I was livid.
Why is she awake right now!?
I picked her up, found her pacifier, rocked her for a minute, and then put her back down. She immediately started crying again and the anger in me boiled over again. I started cursing somewhat quietly somewhat to the effect of why the fuck won’t you go to sleep. All I want to do is go to sleep. Why can’t we all go to fucking sleep?
I know….she’s a baby. I shouldn’t get mad at her, but I was beyond my limit at this point.
Honestly, this is when I decided to remove myself from the situation because I was so mad. I left her crying in her pack and play in our room with my husband sleeping on our bed.
I feel terrible typing this out, but this is exactly how it happened.
Remember, mom life is hard and yesterday was a bad day.
I was so angry and tired. All I wanted to do was sleep.
I’m not sure how long she cried or when she went to sleep or if my husband got up and rocked her at all. However, what I do know is that my toddler then woke up at 3:30 am and found me in the guest room.
I was like you have to be kidding me! What is going on!?
Luckily, after a short conversation, she agreed to lay down with me and we both slept for a few more hours.
Eventually, we all woke up the next morning with me in a less-than-stellar mood. I shared with my husband that I wanted to go run while it was cool in the morning. He responded something to the effect of only if you are going to get done before we have to go get the groceries. It was 7:15 am and pick-up was scheduled for 8 am-8:30 am. I argued that I could get back in time, but he was not thrilled so instead I decided to eat something because I was also very hungry. Not even two seconds after opening up a yogurt and starting to eat. My husband was like come on, are you going to go run? I then very annoyingly responded with no, you pretty much just told me no so I’m eating now instead. It was a very salty exchange and not my best moment.
We all loaded up to get groceries and rode in silence listening to my podcast. It was miserable, but I was so mad at this point. In a cartoon, I probably would have had a steady cloud of smoke rolling from above my head with how mad, tired, and annoyed I was.
After getting groceries, my husband tried to do a nice thing, but I was not having it. Seriously, my poor husband. He offered to let me go do something by myself. He said he would watch the girls, but in my terrible pity party, I said nope. I’m good. I’m fine! Again, I was girl fine, not actually fine. It was terrible. I was terrible.
I was 100% not fine and was so far down my rabbit hole that I couldn’t pull myself out of it. Eventually, my husband went for his run. I played with the girls and felt happy again for a split second, but my toddler had fallen and smacked her face. So while she cried. I cried and cried. I was lost in so many feelings. She had no idea, but I just felt terrible about myself and was having a pity party. I had finally reached a breaking point. It sucked.
Mom life is hard and yesterday was a bad day.
My husband eventually put the girls down for a nap because I couldn’t be bothered to do anything helpful. I laid down for a nap too and fell asleep for a short amount of time, but the laydown was nice. I just couldn’t shake my terrible mood. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
I started getting ready for a work-sponsored event and focusing on something else began melting away my bad attitude.
We got to the event and I saw some of my co-workers and my mood dissolved. It was nice to get out of the house and have someone else hold my children. I no longer looked at my husband and felt rage. I felt normal again.
On our way home, I shared with my husband that I was going to do my 12-mile long run tonight once we got home instead of my normal 3-4 miles. He agreed and said no worries. I’ll watch the girls.
When we got home, I got ready to go for a slow trod after running 8 miles the day before and my husband entertained the girls without batting an eye.
My goals with this run were twofold, minimal to no stops, and cover the distance. I did both at a steady 9-minute pace and I felt decent. This is the furthest I have run postpartum after my second baby. My legs were initially heavy and did not want to move, but eventually loosened up.
I broke a running rule of mine though. I ran while listening to my podcast. I rarely listen to anything while running, but I especially take pride in not listening to anything during workouts or long runs. I don’t listen to anything while competing and want to practice having a strong mental state during those practice runs too. I made an exception for this long run though because I was scared that if I let myself get lost in my thoughts my bad attitude would return and I didn’t want to ruin my run with those terribly intrusive thoughts. The podcast worked though and I had a very pleasant run even though my last 4 miles were in the dark.
I returned home to feed the baby and my husband again put both girls to sleep while I showered and made myself a late-night dinner that consisted of spaghetti noodles and cheese with a sprinkle of pepper. It was delicious. My husband and I chatted like nothing ever happened and we had a nice evening despite my best efforts to ruin the entire day with my terrible attitude.
I share this incredibly personal experience of lashing out to say that it happens. Yesterday was a bad day. I’m not proud of it and I can’t explain it. I just became increasingly more annoyed and wanted to rage because of it. The best I can say is that, since having my second baby, my mood swings are more drastic and harder to pull myself out of than after my first and even before having kids. I believe it is in part because I am more sensitive to the hormone changes that occur during my menstrual cycle. It’s something that I’ve noticed becoming more common with the return of my period after my second. I’m right around the corner from my fourth postpartum period and it’s something I’ve talked about with my husband. I’ve tried to explain it to him, but It’s not normally such an intense and long-lasting thing. I believe this time it was an accumulation of high-stress situations with a lot of unknowns going on around us that led me to a mountain of overflowing emotion.
It’s frustrating, but what I do know is I need to be better at verbalizing my frustration and sharing my stress with my husband. It’s hard to be vulnerable though. I want to be strong. I want to be a super mom. I want to be a superwoman. However, the reality is I don’t need to be any of those things. I need to be honest with myself and my husband so we can work together as a team to be most successful for our family. I don’t need to do it all. Mom life is hard and yesterday was a bad day.
