Is Happiness the Bermuda Triangle?

My friend, R, asked me if I was having a good day.

I paused to think about that. "Um, well, taking all things into consideration, I guess I'm not. But I feel fine." I paused again. "I guess it's a bunch of those punches you just learn to roll with."

That morning had been a farce. Man woke me at 8:30, saying that I should get ready quickly for our 9am church time. I struggled with my irritation over how late he woke me up, especially when I started hearing that none of the kids were ready to go either and I needed time to put dinner in the slow cooker. I rushed through my morning routine, thankful that Frieda's new morning regimen doesn't demand an immediate feeding. We were only 5 minutes late and (thanks to a holiday weekend) found some pretty good seats. Unfortunately, the kids (especially Mr Tag) need a bit of a slower pace, especially for breakfast. They were all a bit on the grumpy side which doesn't work when you ask them to participate in a raging tornado of activity and then sit quietly for an hour.

I thought carefully about how I could talk to Man about this. Taking the cautionary road, I said "love, mornings really do work out better if you wake me right after your shower. It'd be easier on both of us."

He looked confused. "But, I did."

I looked even more confused. "Wait, your alarm was set for a little before 7, right? Did you get distracted or did you take a 90 minute shower?"

"I showered, woke you up right away, and then you went back to sleep. So, I figured you could use the sleep."

My heart instantly softened in gratitude for his kindness. So, it was with conflicting emotions that I said "thank you, maybe next week I can set my own alarm so you won't be burdened with my waking up issues." I honestly had no recollection of him waking me at all.

Then he got a little hesitant, but forged forward with typical Man honesty. "You sounded weird last night."

I laughed. "Ok, I know I snore. Was it funny snoring? Maybe I was dreaming in Pig Latin. Hahaha!! Get it?"

He said, "no, well, of course you snored but it was funny." Then he tried to demonstrate how I sounded. I laughed, blushed, said "thanks", but he looked serious. "No, it sounded almost like choking, then you stopped breathing, and then startled almost awake. Do you think you could get tested for apnea? Maybe I could record you sleeping so you can hear."

I thought about listening to a recording of my own snoring and something inside me was totally squicked out at the idea. How would I ever fall asleep again, knowing that I'm either keeping him up with my "funny snoring" or maybe driving the neighbors down the street nuts with the symphony from that darn house over there? "Um, no thanks. I believe you. Please. Don't record me. Ever."

Getting back to rotten days but feeling fine, I thought about mommy moments and how they balance out the difficult moments, and then I thought about what the neighbors (two single guys with no kids) would think about the noises coming from my house. My kids are loud. Very loud. Sometimes I yell at them. Very loudly. Sometimes they get in trouble and go to their rooms yelling and screaming about how mean and evil I am. They can't understand what's wrong with taking the bottom mattress off the bunk bed and jumping from the top bed onto their new ski slope. Or, they can't understand how it could be their own fault if they get hurt while trying to use the 2 year old as a step ladder to the top of the closet, where that box of games that turns out to be a lot heavier than it looks falls on their noggins. Further, it's incomprehensible to them how painting the screen door with Jello might upset me. Yes, it looks just like a beautiful stained glass window and NO you may NOT use the hose to clean it from the OUTSIDE with the glass door OPEN go-to-your-room-now. How do you let them clean up their every mess when the cleaning might be a worse tragedy than the mess itself?

I remember being a younger person with younger kids and wondering how awful a parent could be to constantly have their little ones decrying their every fault and grievance at the top of their wee lungs. I remember feeling a chill while watching a parent lose patience with a tiny, cute child and want to hug that child and say "it's ok, I'll protect you" and take it home and love it. I knew I'd be a better parent, I knew I'd be kinder, more understanding, and more loved by that child than ever that mean parent could hope to be.

And then my own kids got older. And I wonder what sort of chill goes through the hearts of my neighbors when my kids yell and scream.

It's been an interesting opportunity for me to listen to myself with new ears, and watch myself with new eyes. What do they hear, what do they see in my face when I lose patience with them? How often do I make them "wait, just a minute" all day long?

I'm not too worried about how bad of a job I'm doing, but I do know that I sometimes take them for granted, and I definitely take for granted the fact that they are supposed to be well behaved. I know that some adults can't even live with each other with equanimity, and yet we expect our young ones to do so with patience and obedience, and wonder what's wrong with them when they don't. Princess is getting to be a real snot nowadays and I couldn't imagine where she was getting it from until Man saw me rolling my eyes at someone and he said (once again, in typical Honest Man fashion), "you know, Princess is just imitating you." I was thunderstruck and a bit grumbly at being caught doing what annoys me so much coming from a 6 year old.

My task this week is to peel off the old way of looking at things and try to see what I am from their perspective. Of course that doesn't mean I won't be consistent and insistent when it comes to being good little citizens, but what if... what if I helped them know that I know they are people, too? That's gotta be good for the self esteem.

So, back once again to feeling good despite rotten days (are you getting a feel for how a real life conversation with me must be like?) I really do feel good. I think the post partum depression is completely gone, I'm loving the dramatic decrease in hormonal disturbances since getting that endometrial ablation, and though life is still as stressful as ever my capacity to laugh at it and dig in anyway is increasing.

(please, now that I've said I'm doing ok, please Karma, please don't smack me upside the head.)

(btw, Brian, feel free to be my grammar police officer. After that "data is a plural, you silly" incident I fully expect you to catch my every discrepancy and grin about it.)