Mom Hangover

Last night, at 10:15 PM, I was cleaning poop off of the wall in bathroom and trying to control my temper. I failed. Charles would NOT get back into bed, he would NOT put a clean nighttime diaper on, he would NOT listen to any directive given. I did all the things that I do when I get really tired and frustrated (I was REALLY tired and frustrated) and that I know shouldn’t do: I swatted him on his bare ass, causing him to howl and wake up his sleeping brother; I told him I didn’t care what he did as long as he let me go to bed (of course I care); I told him that I was done being “mom” for the night (when I say that, and I try not to, he thinks I mean that I don’t want to be his mom anymore and so he cries); and I walked out the door and onto the porch as he followed me, screaming at the top of his lungs, “no Mommy, don’t go away!”

Someone just kill me now.

The kid is wonderful but he drives me batty. I’m exhausted by 7 PM and I usually have another three or four hours of work and wind-down time to go. Tony has been heading back to the office after dinner lately, so we can’t even tag-team brushing teeth and bedtime stories, never mind presenting a nice show of force when Charles gets out of bed at all hours. I’ve been painting fascia at night after the kids go to bed, but lately I’ve had to stop, set down the brush, and take my gloves off to wipe a butt (I honestly don’t mind that, better than cleaning it up elsewhere) or provide a spoonful of peanut butter for the child who has been eating all day but has now stayed up late enough to be hungry yet again.

The worst is how much I hate myself for being so strung-out and short-tempered. I normally would not react so badly to the late-night tantrum as I did last night, but I was just so destroyed from such a long day. And I’m pretty sure I still had a load of laundry to fold at that point. Charles does not react well to me getting angry or flustered, and he certainly does not react well to my coping mechanism, which is just to walk away from the situation. I know that he was such a jerkface last night because he was tired, too. But how does a parent make a strong, tall, willful, fifty-five pound four-year-old go to bed if he really doesn’t want to? I’m losing my control over him.

These are the times when I miss Tony the most. He’s such a great balance to me – we’re a great balance to each other. Our parenting styles work well together to corral our children and they respond very well to him in areas where I fail to get through. When he’s not there, I often think, “How, in God’s name, would I ever do this alone?” I often implore Tony not to die because I honestly don’t think I could raise these kids without him.

But you know what the worst of it is (besides the black circles under my eyes today, I mean; they’re pretty terrible)? The kids are so different when it’s just Tony to put them to bed that I am sure he never thinks the same about me. The kids are monsters with me when it comes to bedtime but will acquiesce to their father’s wishes without a hardly a protest.

I didn’t drink yesterday, but I have a Mom Hangover today. Headache, tired eyes, pervading sense of guilt. I tried to set myself and Charles back on a good path by ditching work for a couple of hours and joining his preschool at the Fair this morning. I think we’re cool now.