7:20 a.m. Hear someone crying. Get up.
Find sweatshirt and sweatpants and robe. Come downstairs barefoot. It's one degree outside and the floor in the bathroom feels about the same. Feel annoyed with Elivette for pulling on my sweat pant strings and untying them while I'm trying to pee. Feel guilty that I'm annoyed, especially since I did get to stay in bed past seven.
Denton gets hit in the face with a light saber while I'm trying to navigate the whole coffee and creamer and right side up cup ordeal with half open eyes and I feel guilty about looking in the refrigerator for the creamer while halfheartedly comforting him.
Sit in my comfy chair by the corn stove with toddler on the left and preschooler on the right arms of my chair. Elivette snuggles into my chest and asks to nurse. This child who hasn't nursed since November still asks me nearly every single day. Shot of guilt for weaning her when *I* was ready and not when she was ready.
Read several books to Elivette while I ignore the boys upstairs bothering their older sisters who are still in bed. She and I have lots of giggles about the pictures and faces in her book. Wonder if I should interfere with the situation upstairs. Wonder if I were a "better mom" if they would still torment and tease. Wonder if my kids are normal or if there is too much yelling in this home and that is why they yell. Feel guilty.
She starts pulling on my hoodie strings and kind of choking me. I put her on the floor where she cries. I let her climb back up when she starts "smooshing baby" and pushing uncomfortably on my belly. I put her down again and she cries again and I feel like a heartless mom who doesn't just sacrifice herself for her toddler but I must maintain boundaries and take care of myself too which feels like an impossible task.
The kids want to listen to a CD only we can't find the cord to the CD player. After looking in several places, I pirate the cord from my camera charger which miraculously fits. Wonder if we would still have all the lost things if I were better at organizing and teaching the kids how to put away their things. Feel guilty. Denton starts screaming and slamming doors because Cadrian is the one who gets to hold the CD and put it in the player.
Cadrian finally goes to begin unloading the dishwasher after having been asked roughly thirty times. Denton comes out of the keeping room and begins pulling on the CD player and making the CD skip and yanking on the camera cord, which makes me feel angry and anxious that my camera cord will get ruined and the library CD will get ruined. After asking him to stop several times and gently pushing his hands away and moving his whole little body away, he will not be altered in his destructive course. I not so gently push him away and bodily pick him up and plop him on the couch in the keeping room and shut the door. Feel on the verge of tears that I've already had a temper fit and it's not even an hour into my day.
Loudly remind Cadrian to finish his job for the umpteenth time. Loudly remind Elivette to take her sippy cup to the kitchen for the umpteenth time. Try to read a couple articles in my Holistic Parenting magazine which are about the importance of real food which I then translate into my being a 'bad mom' because all I've fed Fizzy Baby is a couple cups of coffee and a cookie and we're going to have frozen breakfast pizza for breakfast.
Change Elivette's stinky pants the smell of which makes me internally puke a bit. Feel guilty that I didn't take her diaper off earlier so she would have gone in the potty and that the wipes are so cold and that taking care of her basic needs makes me want to retch.
Now Elivette and Denton are fighting over pulling up the antenna on the CD player. Cadrian is playing with the BopIt in the other room. The girls are chatty and overwhelming me with questions and comments and anecdotes.
Brielle is writing a story she intends to submit to PBSKids about a little girl whose parents are so mean they don't let her watch X or R rated movies or drink alcoholic beverages, not even margaritas. Wonder if the PBS people will think WE watch X movies and wonder how she even knows what that is, and if I should make her change it or just ignore it and wonder why I even care what these strangers think when I know we don't do anything "wrong" but then again it's appearances that seem to matter and...what if?
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Until I wrote this out, I didn't even realize how much of my day is punctured with guilt. I don't know where this comes from--other than the Enemy who wants to steal my joy.
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