Cojones

I feel terrible that it has been over a week since I last wrote. I am sure that it has been painful for you not to be regaled with the trials and tribulations of the pseudo-stay at home mom that I am until 11 August. Ha ha.

It has been a difficult week, I won't lie. To say that every moment of the summer has been wonderful would be untrue, but it seems the majority of the bad moments have been in the last 10 days. I have decided that it is entirely possible for a mother to get on her children's nerves and vise versa. And so here is the conundrum....how much can a mother admit to being aggravated by her children before she earns herself the right to be gossiped about behind her back?

You all know what I am talking about...there are women out there who complain about their children and their lives as mothers about whom YOU gossip. They don't love their children, they obviously don't appreciate the "gift" of their children, etc., etc. Nothing is ever said TO the mother in question about the concern or distaste others feel toward them; instead, mom in the spotlight is greeted with uber-pleasant smiles up front, and stabbed in the back with attacks on her motherly character as soon as she turns away.

How many women refuse to admit that their newborn baby is not what they expected, just because they KNOW what people will say about them? How many women deny their toddler's anger-inducing fits because they know that someone will comment on how badly they must be parenting? How many gloss over the potentially dangerous and destructive attitudes of their preschooler because they are afraid someone will remind them how much they will "miss" this time of their child's life?

I would be willing to bet that there isn't a single mother out there who hasn't, at some point, been so angry, frustrated, upset, hurt, stifled, etc by their children that they haven't wished to have just 15 minutes of their life back to the ease and relative pain-free existence it was BEFORE they had children. I am not saying that they want their children gone forever, but for 15 minutes....just 15 minutes to regroup, restructure, restore. And if any mother denies that, then she is either lying or has yet to have their child take a hockey stick to her newly painted walls.

I will stand up for all of those women and then some, then. I will have the cojones to say, " I love my children with all my heart, but for about 2 hours yesterday I would have been equally as happy to have them anywhere but with me". Of course, I would have been aching for them terribly at the end of those two hours, as it is the ache that leads us to becoming mothers in the first place. But two hours without the juggling act would have been very nice...

They did, however, make it up to me by cuddling very nicely last night while we watched "Mulan". I even got a kiss and a "You're my best friend" from my best girl. And with that, the rest of the day was washed away and I was able to go to bed happy.