Being a parent

Today has not been such a successful day in our household. It has been fraught with arguments and “scwabbles” with my dear children, and I’ve suddenly understood why some parents send their children to boarding school: you love them so much that your heart could break as you watch them sweetly sleeping at night, but you just don’t want to be around them that much.

As foretold by experienced mothers when I was pregnant, motherhood is “life changing”. I thought that when I was a new mother I would never recover from the long days of repetitive activities: feeding, changing, putting down for naps, feeding, changing, putting down for naps. Obviously it improved and from around the 6 month mark it started to feel so much easier (not to mention fun – 6 month old babies are hilarious!) but nothing prepared me for the sheer frustration of having a (nearly) 5 year old and (nearly) 3 year old. I never thought that I could be so angry and hurt by a cheeky little 4 year old. I never thought that my sweet baby daughter would make me weep at such a tender age from her unrelenting defiance and stubbornness some days (yup – like today). Add that to a little boy who will just refuse to do the most simple of tasks sometimes and will scream the place down, and you have one frazzled and bewildered mother.

I have no beautiful words for comfort on days like today. I just have emptiness and exhaustion. And the creeping anxiety seeping out from my to-do list. “Finite” by Sara Groves is my go-to song for days like this. It doesn’t give me answers or advice, or tell me how I should be feeling, it just helps me say what I’m feeling… the chorus goes:

I’m finite, I come to an end
I’m finite, I cannot pretend
I’m finite, I come to an end
I’m finite, I cannot pretend

The rest of the song is pretty great too. Its on my running (yeah, that happens so often!) play list and whenever it comes on, my running becomes a prayer and I’m thankful that tears look a lot like sweat.