not feeling so supermom

We all have bad days. Days that make you feel like dropping everything and running for cover to a place where you didn’t have to deal with things you don’t have the fortitude to deal with. Days where you feel like screaming melodramatically “I’m just not strong enough”.

I hate bad days.

Back when I was working, bad days came in the form of having to deal with a sick kid on the very day I had an important event, one I spent weeks working my ass off on. Like come on, what are the odds my baby wakes up with a temperature on big-deal-event-day. You have the million-dollar choice of requesting for urgent leave and watching your weeks of planning (and possibly your job) go up in flames or ditching the kid and hating every single moment of your day at work, wishing it would go up in flames because WORK SUCKS and you’re a terrible mother etc etc.

Or when I get a work call at 3 in the morning with a voice at the other end telling me to get my ass out of bed and into office by 5.30am. Don’t ask.

Or when I spend every day of every week resenting the fact that I’m writing retarded press releases and reports for a bunch of folks who don’t even bother to pretend to read them, and then having to be told I can’t write to save my life.

I thought that when I left my job, that would be the last I saw of bad days.

Without having to go into the debate of whether it sucks more to be a full-time working mom or a work-from-home mom, I’d like to state for the record that bad days don’t go away even when you don’t have to put on a proper shirt and step into the office. Whether you work from home or in the office, a deadline’s a deadline and work still needs to be done. Which is kind of hard to do when your kid decides he’s having a bad day as well. And at least, when I’m at the office, I get to sit in relative quiet in my cubicle to bash out the work.

Right now, my working hours take place from 2-4pm when the kids nap and after 9pm when the kids are in bed. On a good day, that is. So when the kids don’t nap, it’s a bad day. When they don’t nap and spend that two hours whining and screaming, it’s an even worse day. When they spend that time making your existence miserable while you’re on the phone trying to get some urgent work done, it’s a bloody nightmare.

Because on top of being stressed and flustered, you get all emotional and guilt-ridden for being a bad mom who doesn’t deserve to stay home with the kids and how maybe they’re better off at childcare after all.

I told myself that the kids were supposed to come first no matter what. That I would be patient and not lose my shit. I had all these images of huggy-kissy time with smily kids in slow motion and soaring music in the background. But you know how life likes to make a mockery of your best intentions? It was like “Ok, here’s a scene right out from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not so picture perfect now, is it?”

After my fair share of bad days, I wish I could say that I’m an expert on how to roll with the punches. Except that I’m not. But what I do now is to take a deep breath, make myself a steaming cup of hot chocolate, hide in the kitchen where the kids can’t enter, close my eyes and drink. Then suck it up and wait for the day to be over. And this thing called tomorrow, it’s usually better.

With that, I leave you with my favorite Shakespearean quote of all time. “Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

Touche, William.

I need a happy picture today because its been one crazy week. (Which one isnt, right? Do I hear an amen, mommas?) But it’s always exceptionally tough when the kids are sick. Don’t ask me how I survived the last 3 days with Tru quarantined at home, spreading his germs and general irritability. He’s like my Siamese twin whenever he’s sick, extra clingy and stuck to my hip all day. Now that they’re finally getting better, the husband is down and I’m barely holding out.

I’m glad today is Thursday, because that means my weekend starts tomorrow-ish. The whole family is going to gather for my Grandma’s birthday bash (a 3-day affair) so that’s going to be fun. Plenty of people to fuss over the kids while we sneak off to chill out by the beach. Or catch a movie. Or sleep. I miss sleep. Sleep is good.

Yesterday, baby girl woke up early from her nap because of the sniffles, feeling all miserable and looking the part. I’ll admit, I was pretty bummed because it was supposed to be my only clear-my-crazy-schedule quiet moment in the day, on the very day that I had a ton of emails to answer, work to clear, laundry to fold and of course, who’s forgetting the mountain of unwashed dishes that are threatening to eat up my kitchen.

But there she was, looking at me with those baby eyes, like “I need you now mommy!” which is my cue to drop everything and snuggle in bed with her until she feels better.

These are what I call crunch-time moments, the motherhood-defining ones. Moments like these, I literally stop and remind myself why I’m at home in the first place. Sure, I could make better use of my time to earn a few extra quid or keep the house spick and span. Or I could be a mom and be there for them when they need me now because I know in a couple of years, they’re not going to want to snuggle and it will be weird for me to blow raspberries on their thighs and kiss them all over a thousand times.

All this time I’m thinking that I make them feel better but truth is, they make me feel a whole lot better too.

I used to hate it when my Literature lecturers told me that “there’s no such thing as a right answer, as long as you’re persuasive enough“. Because evidently there was. If there wasn’t, I’d be scoring an “A” for my thesis on why we need to set fire to Jane Eyre (the book, not the person). Along the way, I figured out the right answers by sneaking into the staff lounge and getting myself one of those model essays.

I blame it on my compulsive disorder. I need to do things right, whatever right means. I was the kind of kid that colors within the lines and follows all the rules, you know, the head prefect sort with my horn-rimmed spectacles and geeky hair. Freestyling, that’s just not my style.

I’ve learned to be a lot less anal retentive but the compulsiveness, it’s hard to shake off.

They told me it’s the same with parenting. “There’s no such thing as a right parenting style, just what’s right for your kid”. I didn’t buy that, so I was always searching for that elusive right answer. What to feed your child, where to get the best educational material, what toys to get, how to make them sleep and so on. Some answers were backed up by scientific data and others had raving testimonials from expert moms but a lot of it was confusing and contradictory and they all just messed with my head.

So we mostly learned through trial and error. Like one time I fed Truett some peanuts because he was screaming his head off during a wedding dinner and he almost choked and died until I stuck my fingers down his throat and dug it out. Lesson: always have baby bites on hand.

It doesn’t help that this time, I’m not graded by qualified teachers but by the army of perfect moms who always manage to look like they have it all together.

There’s something about being a mom that makes you terribly paranoid and competitive. You’re always peering over your shoulder to see what other moms are doing. Maybe it’s because an entire life is at stake here. Maybe because there really is no right answer and we are all desperately hoping that we didn’t mess up. Once in a while, I chance upon one of those stepford moms and it’s like I’m back to High School all over again.

Sometimes I bring Kirsten out for breakfast in the morning and in order to buy time while I eat, I feed her whatever I’m having, which includes McD’s or fried noodles (but no peanuts, I’m a fast learner). In between my mouthfuls of processed junk food, I turn to the table beside me and there she is, with her perfect hair and neatly arranged tiny boxes of organic celery sticks and hummus. Which is right about the point I start to pretend to search my bag, knowing full well that all I’ll find is a half-eaten hash brown.

Sometimes I put both my kids in the same stroller while I blitz from point to point without strapping them down.

Sometimes I put my kids in front of the telly while I prepare their meals.

Sometimes I say no way more times than I should because that’s the obvious answer to “can I lick the underside of my shoe?”

I’ve come to terms with the fact that I won’t have all the answers. In fact, most of the answers I have are likely to be wrong but that’s the fun of parenting. I’m the boss of them and there’s no one to tell me I suck. Well, except for the moms who do it without saying a word.

Do you ever feel like you’re running so hard just to stand still? Like you want to stop because you’re not getting anywhere but you’re afraid of the alternative once you stop running.

Some days, I feel like I’m making progress, heading somewhere, and I know that because I can see the scenery change as I go. But days like today, I’m running on a treadmill. Running just to stay in the same place. The worst thing is that I don’t know how I ended up here or how to get off.

Which is why I don’t do treadmills. It’s too depressing.

Tru’s been down with another bronchiolitis infection and that’s twice in two months. He’s wheezing and gasping for air… again. First of all, kids are not supposed to NOT breathe because last time I checked, breathing is sort of a prerequisite of being alive. His stomach hurts and he refuses to sleep and calling him foul-tempered is the mother of all understatements.

Baby girl, despite her Rambo immune system, has also succumbed to the virus. I’m supposed to keep them apart so that the germfest will not have a chance to party. Also because putting two cranky babies together is like watching a pitbull fight. It’s a bloody massacre.

Except that there’s two of them and one of me. Which means I’ve got to choose between the two of them. Normally, I’d go with Kirsten seeing that she’s more likely to bang her head or stub her fingers but I’m pretty sure being in danger of not breathing trumps losing things like fingers or brain cells.

So I carry Tru because that’s all he wants me to do. All day long. He just screams and goes “mommy, carry me, carry me, carry meeeee.” Every few minutes I put him down and go carry Kirsten, who is sobbing like the girls in those Korean dramas who’ve lost their husband, babies, limbs, sight and sanity at the same time. Koreans redefine melodrama, but I’ll come to that later.

My kids, though, are having a competition to see who clings on to my ankles harder. Good thing I’ve got two of those so they don’t have to fight over that, thank God.

To top it all off, I just got sucker-punched in the face. Not literally, of course. Still hurts just the same. Maybe tomorrow I can stop running.

But today, I just hold my babies because it makes them feel better.

UPDATE: Turns out, I’m like some kind of psychic because I just came back from the doctor’s with baby girl who got sucker-punched in the nose. Literally. By her brother. With my iPhone. I left them for 30 seconds to warm Kirsten’s milk and in that time, they started fighting and Tru grabbed my phone and walloped her in the nose. I dropped the milk and ran back into the room to find Kirsten screaming and blood coming out from her nose. Which is right about the time I started to lose. my. shit. because after the day I’ve had, a bloody nose on my baby girl is like the finishing touch on this masterpiece.

The good news is that she’s going to be fine. I made the doctor check everything twice just to be sure and her nose is a little red but it’s not broken or anything. I’ve just got to keep a lookout for signs of head trauma.

Seriously, I’m not sure this day can get any worse.