confessions of a 'wannabe-supermom'

alright. 

i confess.

yesterday was one of those days.

you know, the kind where nothing seems to go right.

it was the kind of day that started off on the wrong foot, and continued that way, hour after hour.  nothing that happened in and of itself was really that big of a deal, but the fact that it all happened in one day (after a night in which this hormonal pregnant lady apparently didn't get enough sleep) had me both in tears and laughter, counting down the minutes until daddy got off work.

poor daddy.

this little stinker was the cause. 

(i guess an ornery golden retriever did manage to add one more grievance to my day.....but that is besides the point).

i love my child with a fiery passion. i truly adore him.  

he makes me giggle and he makes me so very proud.

but he is also full of way more energy than me.  

and recently a lot more orneriness than i know what to do with.

my day started out earlier than normal, at about 6:00 with breakfast and some quality family time before daddy left for work.  then hendrix seemed fascinated with some pbs show and i tried to take advantage of the opportunity to catch up on my blogging (this second pregnancy is definitely getting a lot less focus than my first one did, and not because i am any less excited, but just because i am exponentially busier, thankyouhendrix).  

he moved into the kitchen and was playing with his little stepstool-puzzle and i could hear him so i wasn't too concerned that he was getting into something that he shouldn't......when he comes up to me, with his diaper halfway unsnapped, poop smeared all over the floor and his leg, saying "uh-oh mommy".  

um, yeah. 

UH-OH is right.  

so one bubble bath later, after a nice little pep talk about not taking off our diapers unless mommy helps, i set him in front of the tv again so i could hop in the shower and get ready for my day.  (hendrix loves watching shows, but he loses interest in them pretty quickly unless we are watching with him.......which is good i guess......)

i came back to find that he had taken little toddler bites out of every. single. pear. that was on the table in a large fruit bowl.  i am talking like 13 pears, here.  and after taste-testing each one, he had finally settled on his favorite and was gobbling it up!  i was a little perturbed but also happy that he was interested in eating something healthy (though, where he found the room, i have no idea....he had 4 blueberry muffins and a bowl of cantaloupe for breakfast).

another mini-bath later, and we were finally out the door off to work.

work was relatively uneventful until after lunch when it was nap time.  let me preface this by saying that normally our sleep routines have worked really well for us, and i realize now that i had taken that little victory for granted.  

after a song, and the gathering of his blankie and paci, i laid hendrix in the pack n' play, kissed him goodnight and left the room.  all was normal for the first five minutes, and i thought he had gone to sleep.  then i heard the crying.  it was different than an average whimpering refute against sleeping (which really doesn't happen all that often, but occasionally).  in fact, he sounded kind of hurt and scared.  

so i went in there to check on him, and there he was, laying on the ground.  he jumped up and immediately said "woah".  he wasn't hurt, but i think it kind of scared him.  thinking maybe it was a fluke that he had managed to climb out of the pack n' play, and noting that he looked even more tired than ever, i snuggled him up until he calmed down, sang his song again and put him back in the pack n' play.  (was this a bad idea?  i wasn't really sure what else to do with him.......he was tired......)  

he didn't protest and i went about my activities.  about 15 minutes later while i was washing the dishes in the kitchen, he just waltzed in there and said 'hi mom'.  um, what?!?  yeap, he had climbed out again, this time not hurting himself i guess, because he didn't cry, managed to open the bedroom door, and just decided to be done with nap time.  

i didn't know what else to do with him, so i took his blankie and paci away (we only have those when we are sleeping) and let him go play.  oh, but of course the one who really pays when a toddler misses their nap is mama and those hours were still to come in the day.....

he decided to be a turkey at an appointment in which he hollered (mostly in play, but definitely at the top of his lungs) while we were in the waiting room for an entire 45 minutes.  i probably said "shhhh, use your inside voice" approximately 227 times.  didn't seem to matter.  i got dirty looks from the other moms, and found myself actually wishing that their kids would misbehave at least a little bit to make mine look a little less annoying......

he threw a pretty royal tantrum at the grocery store because he couldn't decide which car cart he wanted to ride in, and after trying out all 7 of them, i picked for him.  

and the rest is really just normal overtired toddler moments, added to a little chase around the neighborhood after a wild and fiesty golden retriever.

 my day had just topped the charts as what felt like the longest. day. ever.

i was defeated.  exhausted. discouraged. 

and quite frankly, feeling nervous about even the idea of adding another child into the mix.  if i can hardly keep the one i have under control, what the heck are we thinking?!?!?

and then daddy saved the day......taking over dinner, (we skipped the bath since hendrix had already had a couple) and bedtime, and we enjoyed a late dinner together.  no chicken nuggets.  no flying applesauce.  no tantrums or sticky fingers.  

i was able to tell him about my day, and somehow saw the humor in it though i still really just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep it off.  

he reminded me that those days are not the norm.  those days are sure trying, but they are sandwiched in between lots and lots of other days that involve snuggles and giggles and learning and discovery.  moments that are truly amazing and i wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.  

being a mom is really awesome.  

really hard.  

and lots of work.  

but really awesome.

my hubby summed it up pretty well the other day when he looked back at an entire afternoon spent working in the garden as a family in which all we actually accomplished was planting 4 little tomato plants.  he said "parenting means getting half as much done in twice the amount of time it used to take, while having four times as much fun!"

i still have daydreams about being a supermom, but for now i am content just getting through one day at a time.