Because I need it. Right now.
December is a busy, busy month. And when things get busy, things start to feel crazy. The kind of crazy that makes me want to find a room, close the door and scream loudly at the top of my lungs, take a deep breath, open that door back up and start over. Phew.
I am only really suffering from notorious "first world problems". You're only going to find any of this remotely amusing if you consider the fact that I am a)happy, b)healthy and c)living a pretty fortunate life. Some days though, I just want to throw my hands up and declare defeat. Because being a mom sometimes just takes me down at the knees. It's so humbling. It's frustrating and hard and sometimes I feel like I am losing my mind. I think that's normal, right?
Take today for example. I took the littles to the grocery store for what I thought was a quick order. Not a long list, but a few items for school lunches this week and some baking supplies (I'll get to that "stress" later). The deli counter guy saw that the kids were starting to get anxious so he gave them a babybell cheese. Thanks buddy! For a teenage boy, he was incredibly empathetic to my plight. I skipped the "free cookie" stop at the bakery, and that my friends, is where the wheels came off. Sydney and Jack noticed my oversight and promptly declared MUTINY!!! Groceries got tossed out of the cart when I wasn't looking, mittens got dropped. And there were tears. I think they might have been mine.
When I got to the cash Sydney tried to "help" by throwing everything on the belt. The bread got squished. The clementines spilled out of their crate. My cranky cashier did not want to price match the 10 lbs of butter I was buying to bake cookies with and then, Jack fell out of the cart. Sigh. He just stood up and threw himself out and I was lucky enough to catch him halfway through his glorious shopping-cart dismount. The cashier watching this was not at all impressed. "Well, when I was a young mother MY kids didn't express themselves the way children do now". She continues..."you all have it so much easier with your modern conveniences". She looks down at Jack and tells him "mommy gave in too easily. If you were my little boy you'd be parked right still in that cart". Are you kidding me??? Nice. I was very embarrassed, frazzled and sweaty. I was tired. I felt more than a little defeated.
The lady behind me gave me a sympathetic look. On her way out, she patted me on the shoulder and said "I've been there. It gets easier. Merry Christmas". And I almost burst into tears.
So, here I sit at my computer telling this boring story. The groceries are still sitting on the floor (because even with all my MODERN CONVENIENCES I still have to unpack and put away groceries like they did 100 years ago) and I am starting to feel a bit better. I'll put the food away, do the dishes and keep going. Maybe I will bake some cookies. Maybe I won't. Ah. December.
Through this silly trivial, every-day stresses, I am reminded of a quote from the Grinch who Stole Christmas, which I read to Ava at bedtime the other day:“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
And then there's butter. That just makes everything better!!!
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