Another Day in Paradise

Today was not the best.

Daniel and I have been having some serious power struggles lately. Maybe some three year olds can be reasoned with but he is not one of them. I’m hoping he gets tormenting me out of his system soon so he’ll be a model teenager. In the meantime I think I need to pull out some of my parenting books and start searching for answers.

Joel. This boy put two holes in his new jeans. One in each knee. I think they are only a month old. I should have saved myself the trouble and put the patches on as soon as I bought them. I get down on myself and feel like people will judge me to be a bad mother because my kids look so raggedy, but I can’t afford jeans every month, so patches it is.

I get pretty frustrated with my kids messing things up, ruining, breaking, hiding and losing things. I currently have three shoes in my closet that are missing their matches. I’ll probably find them under the bed when I clean Danny’s room. I’ll probably find a rotten banana, sticky popsicle wrapper or his missing eye patch too. That’s just the way we roll around here.

I slammed my thumb in the dryer door. Twice. The door hit my thumb so hard the first time that it flew back open, hit the washer and slammed back on my thumb a second time. It hasn’t turned black yet, but I’m just waiting. I yelled “OW” at the top of my lungs twice and it did not sufficiently diffuse the pain so I kicked the refrigerator. Now I have a bruised foot too (that’s what I get for being a hot head, I guess). Incidentally what I was looking for was not in the dryer.

I called my husband and cried. I told him I thought I broke my foot. He asked me if I could drive and told me to come pick him up from work. We drove around a little because I wasn’t ready to go home just yet. He bought me chocolate (of the Cadbury Easter variety). He told me I am a good mom. He made me laugh. He commiserated about Danny’s behavior. He wasn’t upset that Danny had gotten into and eaten his dinner that I had saved for him. He let me rant. He loves me.

Today I am thankful for:

• David.
• Roasted Korean sweet potatoes, mangoes and kimchi (a gift from our neighbor). The sweet potatoes were delicious. Mangoes are always nice. The kimchi wasn’t a big hit with anyone but Nate though.

• Friends and family making me laugh when I really needed a laugh.
• Poetry. Silly and serious.
• The sound of rain.
• David. He deserves two mentions today.