Comfortably numb

I know that when the kids are behaving horribly it only makes matters worse when I get angry. If I get angry, they sense it, and their behavior gets worse. I know this yet, sometimes I find myself in that cycle of increasing anger anyway. When your children wake you up at 4:30 AM, and you are all over tired and miserable it is hard to behave rationally. The children are crabby, and more prone to horrible behavior, and I am less likely to deal with the horrible behavior in a good way.

It is on days like those when I want to be the one who leaves for work first, the one who doesn’t have to get the kids from a state of pajamas and empty tummies, to one of daycare appropriate clothing and at least partially filled tummies. I want to be the one who doesn’t have to fight with the children to get them into the car. I want to be the one who can calmly tell me later “you shouldn’t let it get to you so much.” I want to be the one who thinks first about his need to get to work, and how much work he needs to accomplish this day, rather than about the hundreds of little things that need to be done for the children and for the household. I want to be the one who calls home at 5:30 PM and asks if I’ve already picked up the kids from daycare (daycare that closes at 5:30 PM). I want to be the one who can work from 7 AM until 6 PM with no thought of how my children got from their beds to daycare and back home again. I want to be the one whose job comes first, whose job is more important, and who’s simply not able to leave work after working for 8 hours. I want to be the one who can come home and eat dinner and then sit on the couch reading a book until one of the children or I make him engage the family in some way. I want to be the one who the children scream “Not you, only Mommy can do it” at when I try to help them. I want to be the one who can turn off all things family while I’m at work. I want to be the one who doesn’t have to worry about how all of that yelling in the morning is shaping our children negatively. I want to disengage at will.

I want all of it, or at least I would want it, until I had it for five minutes.

PS. To lighten the mood a bit, I just have to post a shout out to my Mom. Happy 60th Birthday Mom! I hope you are having a fabulous time in Vegas with my dear brother and his dear wife, can't wait to see you next month!