Sometimes I'm a bad mom.

These are my beautiful children. I love them dearly. Sometimes I look at them and wonder how on Earth I got the privilege of being their mother. The challenge of rearing and teaching them is often overwhelming and I feel less than up to the task.

I have this idea in my head of what their mother should be like. Of the kind of mother I want to be. Every once in awhile that mother pokes her head into our house and spreads happiness around like fairy dust. I love when she comes to our house. There are other times when another, very angry, mean mother comes over and I can't seem to hold the door closed hard enough as she is trying to ram her way into the house. I hate when she is here. I really do. I am happy to say that I am that first mother! It's true! I am sad to say that I am also the mean mother. It's true.

There are times when I can't seem to get a hold of my anger after asking for one of my children to complete a very simple task 80 times and seeing that it just isn't getting done. Or when I ask them not to do something 80 times and they do it for the 90th time. Sometimes they are mean to each other and I just can't understand why they would treat each other that way! They are siblings! There are so many reasons, sadly, that this angry mother shows her face and I don't know how to make her go away.

A couple of days ago I was throwing Reagan a birthday party. It seems like their worst behavior shows itself on days that have something going on. After a morning of all of the above and more going on I blew my top. I yelled louder and meaner than I ever remember yelling. Most of the time when I yell my kids barely hear me. They just look at each other and laugh. Which of course makes me madder. This time, however, they knew I was serious and stopped everything to stare at me like I was going to do something crazy. This day I was done being ignored. I NEEDED to be heard! I was so upset that I threatened to cancel the birthday party. And I really would have done it had I been ignored for the millionth time.

Luckily, my very smart children knew this was for real and stopped the craziness that led to my craziness. Time seemed to slow down after my melt down and the kids calmed. They managed to be good for the next hour before bedtime and didn't get the party cancelled. I was glad for that. I was also so sad that I had acted the way I had. Sometimes I'm a bad mom. Sometimes I can't find a better solution to their bad behavior and I yell my voice dry. I hate that about myself. I want to be the happy, wonderful, fairy dust spreading mother that I know they deserve 100% of the time. Every day I get the chance to be that mother. I'm not perfect and I still get frustrated at times. But I know it is something that I can work on and hopefully the angry mom will slowly go away.