A few days ago a friend shared
THIS blog post. The jist of it is that her number one piece of parenting advice is "Don't kill the baby." I'm not going to lie, my first year of motherhood was easy. I slid in to motherhood like it was MADE for me. I enjoyed every minute of it. I missed having some purpose outside of the house but still thoroughly enjoyed my life IN the home. I was ready to have another baby almost instantly. Around the time little Tali was 18 months I preceded to have one miscarriage after another. A year and a half later I've grieved a LOT and found my self in a space where I'm not even sure I want the child I have at times, let alone another. I still feel an unbelievable amount of pain over my miscarriages, my second one most of all, I also harbor a large amount of guilt for thanking the universe every day that I only have one kid to tend too. Brenan tells me I focus to much on the negative and not enough on the positive. He's probably right. But it's hard to see the positive when each day feels as though I'm trapped in a cage submerged in icy water and escape is no where to be found. When simply getting out of bed in the morning is only the begining of a waterfall of extremely hard things you will do that day (such as; not screaming at the child that you'll come when you're done cleaning up the cereal they accidentally spilled all over the entire house, resisting the urge to lock the child in the bedroom for 6 hours so that you can lay with a pillow over your head and breath in silence, not punching your child in the face when they inadvertently cause you a surprising amount of physical pain for the 7th time in one hour, and miraculously managing to remain calm while explaining to said child for the tenth time that they can NOT shove sticks in to the power outlets even if she does need to hang her necklace on it), it's understandable that even the gooey kisses bring a delayed and painful smile to my face. Lace all of this with mild depression and it will become damn near impossible to look on the bright side, even when I'm more naturally a "bright-side" kind of person.
That blog was a breath of fresh air because it came from a mother who "gets" it. She stood up and admitted that no matter how Pinterest perfect your life is (or isn't) the best accomplishment you can have as a parent is and always will be that you kept that child and YOURSELF alive! Sometimes that's all you can manage. Sometimes you need to hide in a dark closet while your kid wanders the house calling your name and just BREATHE for an hour and hope nothing bad happens while pretending to not exist.
"Sometimes all you can do is stand and breathe"
My very being is glued to the floor.
The three year old pulls at my arm
How long have I been laying here?
"Mom mom mom mom mom come on mom"
Not long enough. I close my eyes tighter.
Maybe it will think I'm dead and move on.
"Mom! Mom! Get up mom! Lemme show you!"
I try to visualize standing.
Standing. How does one do that?
I stretch my hands wide and wiggle my fingers.
They work. I shouldn't be surprised that they work.
"Mom, mom, mom why you laying there mom?"
My lids flutter open. There's a smiling chocolate covered face hanging over me
I choke back the scream trying to claw its way out of my throat
Breath. Focus on sitting up. Breath. You can do this.
"MOM! I'm waiting mom! Put your shoes on mom!"
Sitting is easy, breath, count to three, stand
That wasn't hard, I can move, my body works
"Yaaaaaay! Le'me show you now mom"
My fingers are yanked and my body follows
One foot, then the other.
Breath in.
Breath Out.
