It took me way too long to figure out "eltneg"
Let me start out by saying that I am in no way passing any judgment on the teacher for having them do a word search. It's May- kids are out of control during the last few weeks of school. Sometimes you just have to hand them a word search or seven and let them be. Been there, done that (more times than I'd like to admit).
What caught my attention was the words the kids were asked to search for- "cooking", "gentle", "patient", "sweet"…
Where are "exhausted", "takeout", "wine", and "sobbing in a locked bathroom"? Ok, maybe that last one is a little much, but you get what I'm saying right?
Tonight I offered my kids mac and cheese for the third night in a row, but we mixed it up and did grilled cheese instead- i guess that counts as cooking? We stood by and let the kids wrestle in the bathtub until the floor was sopping wet- that's totally patient!
These past few weeks have been so hard. I don't know where to begin, and I'm not even sure I remember all the reasons why. We are in the thick of some wild times with these kids and I've about lost it.
Today in the middle of my therapy session, I burst into tears. My daughter, who had been crawling all over me, first wiped them away, laughed at me and then tried to nurse. That really sums up life right now. I know my kids aren't really trying to break me, (they can't help but be normal 6, 3, and 1 year olds), but they sort of are.
I talked about how I feel like a bad mother because I am not giving each kid all the attention they need. Now I don't mean that I focus on them each 100%- I'm talking about insisting on chores, following through with punishments, brushing teeth on a regular basis- I'm falling behind with all of these things. I try to give them autonomy and the tools to take on some independence, but it's so hard when I could really make the bed so much quicker!
When I get rid of my snarky attitude and look at the list of words, I see that they are so important to me as a mother not only for the way I deal with my children, but also in how I deal with myself. I really haven't been gentle or nice to me- and I definitely haven't been patient.
I am going to work on this.
But don't expect any changes on the cooking front.
