Sometimes there just aren’t enough layers in the sandwich to go around. And then I don’t succeed at any of it—-mother, daughter, wife. And it doesn’t feel good, but honestly, I don’t know how to do it any better.
So I end up yelling at my five year old for pooping in his underwear AGAIN when he knows damn well how not to do that and then changing his mind about bubbles in the bath after I’ve already filled the bathtub and yelling at my seven year old who wakes up from his self-imposed exile turned nap and wants to watch a cartoon at 8:30 at night and then sulks and then my husband gets mad at me for yelling so then he yells then everyone is upset so I just go to bed and lay there sleepless thinking about my mother crying on the phone that evening about being so scared and not knowing what to do because my father is getting so much worse.
And none of it feels good. None of it.
Wow. I have been there with the kids and that’s bad enough, the guilt. I worry sometimes that my kids’ memory of their childhood will be of my impatience, my yelling, something I never thought I would do, swore I would never do. (The logical part of my mind knows that I am a good mother, that we have had so many, many more pleasant times, but I still worry)
But the father part is the killer. I’m so sorry you are having to deal with this.
oooh baby, I love you…..