Rough Day

If you have read this blog for a little while, you know that I make no bones about how difficult motherhood can be. I read other blogs and often see all this beautiful images of children frolicking in the waning sunlight of evening, beautifully playing with one another, and the images are accompanied by a parent's glowing account of how incredible each and every moment with his/her child was all throughout the day. That's great and all, and certainly there are moments of pure bliss. And these really are the moments that get you through. But sometimes they're few and far between, so I guess I'll be the ambassador for telling the truth in motherhood: Sometimes, days are just rough. We had one of those rough days on Tuesday. Micah refused to nap, potty-training wasn't great, Liam was still missing his bottle, and I was at the end of my rapidly-fraying rope. I reached the end when I was putting Micah back in bed for the umpteenth time when he was supposed to be napping. He looked at me with these huge eyes after I finished reprimanding him for not only getting out of bed but waking up his brother, and said, "Mommy, do you want to hold me?" And I realized that I did. More than that, I wanted to do something to remind myself that I don't just love my children, but I genuinely like them. So we threw out our plans for the rest of the day. And instead we did lots of fun things. We got in the car and I let them watch the DVD player even though we were only headed for the mall. (This is Liam watching "Trains" in the car.) We ate frozen yogurt at the mall and ruined our dinners. We actually rode the rides and didn't just sit in them pretending that they're broken. It worked. I remembered that my boys are fun, fun-loving, and actually (usually) like each other. And I remembered that I like them. And love them. And am grateful for the time that I have with them. Even, at least in hindsight, the rough times.