Bad Mommy Days

Sometimes I have a bad Mommy day.  There's nothing else I can do that sufficiently explains why everything just goes wrong inside this house.  I can blame it on all different kinds of factors, but sometimes...its just me. 

As anyone that knows me can tell you, I have the patience of Job.  I seldom lose my temper. However, I feel like I am at maximum capacity today.  The deep freeze of the millennium has left us without water for almost two weeks.  Apparently the freeze burnt a pump out and although we had water, it was nary a trickle and I couldn't wash dishes, do laundry or take a bath for over a week.  You can imagine the pile up that has occurred in a house with three small children and a working man.

This is unusual for this part of Texas and even more frustrating, it was unaccompanied by any type of moisture, which we desperately need.  Apparently, according to the older folks in town, this has not happened since 1962, a tale that has now local folklore because all of the women who told me about this also remember their husbands being out for days busting up frozen water troughs while they stayed home giving spit baths to their own children.  Of course, dishwashers and washing machines were still a bit of a luxury and they weren't smack down crazy trying to figure out what to do with themselves without these appliances.  I thumb through my mother in law's grandmothers journal trying to find some reference to how she handled something like this but....she had people!  I don't.  I AM the people.

I haven't mopped the floors, the towels lie molding in the corner, no one has clean sheets, dishes pile up in the sink still swimming in their pre super bowl glory, and laundry is stacked up in piles waiting to be put away as I've loaded and, then unloaded them after two hour round trips to town to wash. 

Anyway.... back to the reason I'm so grouchy.  I'm frustrated and overwhelmed and I'm projecting this on to my children.  The chaos is everywhere and I think chaos is breeding chaos like jackrabbits around here.  Not to mention all three of the children are sick which makes them whiny and temperamental.  It's a trifecta of craziness!  So apparently all of the habit training Charlotte Mason talked about is out the window!  No one is cleaning up after themselves, there's UFC fight championships being  held over stuffed animals, the littlest scrape sends them over into full throttle breakdowns, the baby keeps getting into markers and using them for makeup, school doesn't get started until 9 a.m. and even when it starts it just stalls.....and I find myself whirling through the house yelling like a character out of some Edward Albee play.

When children sense frustration, instability and chaos, it makes them nervous and when they're nervous they take it out on each other, you and the living room furniture.  Slowly but surely, you have to redirect their energies to something productive and then get back on a schedule.  I have to calm down.    I've resorted to using my Mary Poppins voice.  I don't really mean anything I say with my Mary Poppins voice, but it's like being a greeter at the Gap, eventually you'll start believing yourself and the mood is changed.