So I found myself lying awake at 4:00 this morning, feeling like a “bad mom” as I replayed yesterday’s events in my head. Dissecting every poor parenting choice I’d made and feeling annoyed with myself for not being a “better” mom, I said a prayer for more patience and continued guidance in raising my kids.
Somehow, when we’re “in the (exasperating) moment” with our children, it seems appropriate to yell, slam a door, even engage in an argument with our preschooler. Then later, we wonder why we weren’t the adult in the situation. Tough stuff.
*We hear the word “Mommy” no less than 57,000 times in a given day. Sometimes I want to disguise myself in my kids’ dress-up clothes and see if I can hide by roaming the house incognito.
*We are asked the same questions over and over in a given day.
*We can bend over backwards and do cartwheels to create a fun-filled day for our little ones, and they still want more (a prime example of this: my 4-year-old keeps asking to go back to Chuck E. Cheese’s. I explained to him tonight that we can’t do things like that every day, because it gets expensive and it isn’t a treat anymore if we do it all the time. “Do you understand what I mean?” I asked him. His response? “Yes, and Mom, by the way, speaking of Chuck E. Cheese, when can we go back?”). Excuse me, Son, while I take a flying leap out of your bedroom and hurl myself over the railing of the 2-story foyer. I got nothin’ left.
*We find ourselves saying the same things again and again, only to … find ourselves saying them again and again.
BUT – We are human. We get annoyed, frustrated, tired. We lose our patience and our temper. We say and do things we wish we hadn’t. And it’s okay. Luckily, children are extremely resilient (even more so than adults) and very loyal to us. We have to be loyal to ourselves by getting out of bed in the morning (or at 4 AM), brushing off the dust from the day before, and beginning again. We have a daily opportunity to change our thinking, choices, behavior (Man, it’s hard in August though, isn’t it???).
There’s a song with the lyrics “There’s always tomorrow to start over again. Things will never stay the same; the only one sure thing is change. That’s why there’s always tomorrow.”
When I got out of bed at 4 AM, I went downstairs and did 45 minutes of kickboxing (I either needed to work out some frustration, or I was suffering from temporary insanity). Then I made 2 lists: one named all of the “good mom” things I’ve done this summer, and the other named all of the good things I see in myself. These lists helped me to give myself a break and move forward.
Let’s always forgive ourselves (especially at the end of the summer!) for not being “perfect” parents. First, because there’s no such thing; and second, because “there’s always tomorrow to start over again.”
The World of Author/Mom Alicia Murphy! 
Love it. Been there, but never kickboxing at 4am.
Bad moms don’t wake up at 4 AM wondering if they are a bad mom. Only good moms do that.
It’s like how crazy people don’t know they are crazy. Good moms don’t know they are good. Bad moms are sure they are (good).
Same principle applies to idiots.