Ugly Mom

Every morning I wake up, and I pray for patience.

I make my coffee, and I pray for patience.  I kneel in church, and I pray for patience.  I make breakfast and lunch and dinner, I do nap time and showers, I read books and I play with blocks, and all the while I am praying for patience.

I read books about love and kindness and justice in the hopes that they will teach me patience.  I am knee deep in Christian philosophy somehow believing there’s the magic formula for patience in there.  I ask friends and acquaintances and practical strangers where to find the secret to patience.

And some days I can make it through the majority of the day as long as I stay calm and am constantly praying.  There are days I can maintain a relative tone of patience.  It’s a moment by moment type of thing, but I can do it.

But then it ends up being 9:15 at night and she has come down stairs for the five hundredth time for the five hundredth reason, and I can’t find it anymore.  The prayers don’t come.  The words of wisdom I have read leave me.  I find myself yelling at a little girl to just please get back into bed, and that makes her cry which makes me yell more which makes her cry more, and soon we are both a mess, and I’m the only one to blame.

She should have gone to bed.

But I should have known better.

She’s the child.  She’s allowed to create reasons not to sleep.  She’s allowed to keep wanting to see me.  She’s allowed to come to me with any of her troubles, imagined as they may be.

And I’m the one who is supposed to listen.  Who is supposed to care about the box elder bug that is nowhere near her room and that wouldn’t even be able to get in if she would just shut the door and that she wouldn’t have even known about if she would have gone to bed two hours ago like she was supposed to.

But tonight I was the one who upset her.  I’m the one who got so overwhelmed and so under water that I finally blurt out, “You are not allowed to go to preschool tomorrow unless you get into bed.”  I’m the one who finally stormed up the stairs and killed that bug with such force, I’m surprised the house didn’t fall down.

I’m the one who failed.

And tomorrow she’ll wake up and forgive me because that’s what kids do.  And tomorrow I’ll wake up feeling shitty because that’s what moms do.

Maybe tomorrow you could all say a little prayer for me and my missing patience.

I don’t want to end another day feeling like this.

She deserves so much better.