A difficult day from a few months ago...

I've had this in draft for ages. I was 13 weeks pregnant so it must have been April. Sometimes this is how life is, and on this occasion I wrote about it while I was in the midst of it. I absolutely did NOT have the guts to post it, though. Now I think I will, because I am glad to have a record of the bad times as well as the good, for balance, and to remind myself. And maybe to encourage others, who knows. If someone had bashed me for any of this at the time, I would have struggled to cope with it, but now I feel able to post it. I still have bad days, of course! I have some wonderful days as well. Just to say....

Having a bad day today. Mainly hiding from the children and they’ve watched 3 hours ish of TV, and I DON’T feel like a good mummy today. I’m irritable (nearly 13 weeks pregnant and tired) and honestly just fed up of constant, “Mummyyyy!” and tale-telling and demands and disobedience, and intentional mess-making and attitudes, and even “I need a wee!” for the zillionth time which is wonderful progress but which I must immediately drop everything to supervise, bottoms to wipe on children who are old enough by far to be wiping their own but who either won’t, or simply don’t get all the poo even when they do their best. Tired of nausea and food mess to clean, and dinners to make my queasy self think about and prepare, and 2-year-olds breaking through the kitchen gate and helping themselves to food every. Single. Time. I leave the downstairs to get a baby, settle a baby, or wipe one of the aforementioned bottoms. Tired of otherwise adorable babies who have strong opinions right now, and arch and scream fit to burst my ear drums, and wake cranky from naps, and 5 times in one evening plus several times in the night and then up for the day at 4.50am – each time only being satisfied by breastfeeding, which my hormonal body is rather rebelling against at this moment in time. Tired of my own irritability and disliking myself for my own inner thoughts of, “Leave me alone!” and “Just stop TALKING to me!”, and “Urgh, I wish I could just put ear plugs in and bake the day away!”, and “I just DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH IT!” Dis. Like. And disliking myself isn’t productive, not for me, and not for my children either.

I saw a blog post at Finding Joy to encourage mothers today (I never linked this at the time of writing this post, and now I have no idea which post it was at that encouraged me, but the link here is her main blog url - ALL posts are well worth reading, as they are all to encourage mothers who feel in over their heads at times!). It said, what if you could pin everything you DID do that mattered for your children today, rather than feel bad about the things you didn’t do, or the pins on pinterest that you never got around to doing. It was theoretical, but I wanted to actually try that somewhere so that I could see. I don’t feel like I’ve done ANYTHING worth ANYTHING for my children today. I hope I am proved wrong. The blog author said that you would fill a board! I hope so.

Cleaned up after breakfast.

Cleaned up after lunch.

Chosen outfits for the children from the clean laundry, dressed little ones, and motivated the older ones to dress themselves.

Supervised their much-dreaded chore time in the living room, giving out jobs until it was done.

Disciplined uncountable times, all of the children (some once, some RE.PEA.TEDLY) for various behaviour or attitudes which needed correcting/addressing.

Wiped bottoms.

Encouraged Benjamin each time he needed a wee or a poo – he is still potty training.

Restocked the soap in the bathroom for the boys when theirs went awol under the toilet pipes.

Made lunch.

Breastfed. Elijah, Samuel, and Benjamin once too.

Settled Elijah for naps twice, and resettled him back to sleep after he woke on both naps.

Facilitated the older boys watching nature video clips that they had been asking to do for ages.

Cuddled children when they needed cuddles. Feel sure I have also failed to do this at times too.

Given kisses and comforted for hurts and upsets.

Intervened to sort out quarrels ENDLESSLY, though often with a bad attitude myself, so maybe that doesn’t even count…

Fetched drinks on demand a lot.

Changed nappies.

Changed clothes when they got food, drink or wee on them (several children have needed this, which is the norm).

Prayed. Not with the boys. But still.

Emailed Heather to ask her to pray for me today.

I am not sure what else, and my list doesn’t seem very long (or full of anything all that important), but I have to go now, because the baby in my arms is bucking about and fussing, having finished his feed, and Benjamin is shouting from the bathroom that he has done a wee and a poo, and I need to go and wipe another bottom.

I know. I am still blessed. I don’t forget, it’s just hard when I am pressed on all sides. Tomorrow will be better!