When I KNOW I'm in Trouble

When Braeden was born, my mom came to stay with me for a few days.  She did everything because I was completely inept.  Completely.  Although I had been a brilliant mother to Nelly, my doll, when I was a little girl, (aside from the fact that she had holes in her head where the hair was supposed to be because I gave her a bath) a real baby proved much harder.

When my mom left to go home, I was crying.  And so was she.  I think she felt as worried about me as I did.

I knew I was in trouble.

Yesterday I was talking to my mom on the phone and started to cry like you only do when you're on the phone with your mom and you Can't Do It Anymore.

I've been pretending to almost everyone that asks me that everything is great.  My kids are happy.  They're loving school.  That part's true.  THEY are happy.

I'm having a hard time.

I miss my kids.

I miss the crushing pressure of homeschooling three children.  (Which is weird because I enjoyed feeling so tense some days that my shoulders were hunched up around my ears????)

I miss telling them to stop being so silly during lunch.

I miss correcting their papers.

I miss knowing that whatever craziness the rest of the day threw at us, our mornings were together.

I miss three heads bent over three desks.

I miss the chaos.

My mom listened to me and comforted me with merely the tone of her voice.  My mom.  She has this mothering stuff down.

Then she said, "I wish I had something to tell you to make you feel better, but I don't."

Rats.  It reminded me of after Braeden was born.  Something my mom couldn't fix and magically make manageable.  Ta-da!

Isn't it a good thing we don't know what we're getting into when we become mothers?  We vaguely understand things like:  pregnancy doesn't look like a picnic, labor and delivery sounds painful, everyone says kids grow so fast, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da...

We have no idea.

Nothing can prepare you.  It's intense and painful and exhilarating and wonderful and really, really hard.

The hardest part?  The loosening.  The sending them out into the world, on their own.  Their lack of backward glances.   

I am, I think, in the midst of an identity crisis.  If I don't pour my lifeblood into teaching my children every day, what exactly do I do?

(I could always--truly it always needs it--clean my house, but where's the fun in that?)

Yesterday I had the startling discovery that school has only been in session for two weeks.  It seems like a lifetime.  Maybe I'll adjust yet.

In the meantime, I'll comfort myself with the fragments of time I have with my children.  I'll worry less about things that matter less.

Time is fleeting.