When I feel overwhelmed by my family and life in general, I like to watch a movie that reminds me I much prefer my crazy than someone else’s. I love watching Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. I even like watching Cheaper by the Dozen. These movies offer a filter free view of family life. It’s messy, it’s busy, it’s chaotic, it’s crazy, it’s full of love one moment and full of anger and tantrums the next.
Yesterday morning was one of those crazy mornings where everything went wrong. But in hindsight, it actually didn’t. We faced the challenges head on and got on with what we had to do. Yet at the time, it felt frustrating and annoying.
I started yesterday morning by sleeping in. And even though I needed the sleep, not getting up that extra hour meant I wasn’t able to get some stuff done before the kids got up. So I felt behind the eight ball before my morning had started.
When I finally got out of bed, Jacob told me he found our freezer door open in the garage, which meant all of our meat, that we buy in bulk, had defrosted.
Phoebe had opened the freezer door on Sunday to get an ice block but didn’t shut the door properly, so all night, our meat had slowly defrosted, and a puddle of meat juice congregated at the freezer door. Thankfully all the meat was still cold, but it meant I had to cook it all that morning if I was going to salvage it. This wasn’t on my long to-do-list.
The moment I got up, the kids kept asking me where we would go for the day and in frustration I told them, nowhere. Of course my answer was met with ‘that’s boring, we want to go somewhere.’ I checked our bank account, hoping a late work payment would be in our account. No such luck. I hadn’t been paid. This meant we were definitely not going anywhere.
Jacob left to catch the bus to go to work, only to come home 15 minutes later because the bus hadn’t arrived and he needed to drive to work which meant I would be carless for the day.
In the scheme of things it wasn’t a big deal. But when you’re emotional, tired and dealing with kids that don’t understand the consequences to their actions, it felt all too much.
After Jacob left to go to work a second time, I had a friend come by my house to pick up a spare car seat so she could take her boys down to Sea World for the day. I burst into tears when she arrived because I wished we could have joined her. But we couldn’t and I had meat to cook and three girls to entertain – at the same time.
It was good to have the cry, and get out what was sitting on my chest. Once the waterworks finished, I got on with what I had to do, one meal at a time.
Sometimes, life has Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Moments. And each moment may be different for all of us, but there’s no denying the emotions that come with dealing with the unexpected.
In the scheme of things, nothing was dangerous or life-threatening. They were just mini inconveniences that piled on top of each other.
I reminded myself, my girls have not missed out these holidays. We’ve been to the park, made craft, watched movies, eaten chocolate and had special outings that will make for amazing childhood memories.
And we are so far removed from the horrors happening in Syria. Yet despite the distance, the videos and images that have come through on social media have made me cry in despair. Watching a human suffer is torture. A child gasping for air. It’s torture from behind the screen because there is NOTHING we can do… except pray. Pray for justice, pray for peace and pray that world leaders make the right decisions in dealing this evil.
We lost another beautiful blogger this week – Emma from Dear Melanoma. I’d been following the Facebook updates recently as family shared what had been happening these last few weeks since Emma was admitted to hospital. In her mid-twenties, this young gem of a girl was taken too soon.
When we experience Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Moments, we are reminded of our humanness and frailty. And how precious life is.
I’m so grateful for my family. I love my girls and my husband so very much. But sometimes the demands of raising a family can rob me of my joy. And in those moments, I have to read this post that I wrote for Mumtastic to remind myself that these frustrations and feelings of being overwhelmed and inadequate are only temporary.
Motherhood is full of Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Moments. But they pass. You get through difficult moments and they build your resilience for the next time you’re hit with the unexpected.
I got all the meat cooked so all our dinners are pre-cooked this week, which means less stress for me working out what we will have for dinner. What was meant to be an inconvenience, was now my gain.
And we all made it through the day, but I may have inhaled a Cadbury Chocolate Easter Egg after lunch, because sometimes chocolate takes off the edge off a crazy day.
