This past Sunday is a hard day to describe in words. It had such potential to be an amazing family day and it turned into an utter disaster due to the entire family having meltdowns at one point or another.
It was like the perfect storm hit the Murphy clan and just caused us all to lose our minds. I was mad at Sean, Sean was mad at me, the kids were just doing whatever they wanted and it seemed as though discipline was something they had never been introduced to.
It was pretty miserable.
Our agenda for the day included church, lunch and the pumpkin patch. A very doable Sunday…which would hopefully end with some naps and some football watching by dad. I had to go into work around 3pm so we wanted to have as much family fun in the hours before it and intentionally just aimed for a late nap.
Church was church….we live pretty much on the cusp of complete “meldown” unless I bring just enough snacks and activities to keep the restless troops entertained. The whole church part gets lost most weeks, but we tell ourselves that we are at least there physically.
Lunch out only occurred because I didn’t know the pumpkin patch was not open until 1pm…arghhhh. We headed to a nearby Jason’s Deli where our kids did an amazing job impersonating monkeys. A table of elderly folks moved across the restaurant to distance themselves from the chaos. This is when my meltdown started. I began to wonder if anything we’d done in the past 4 years had been right as parents or were we going to be those people who had crazy teenagers and just wondered what might have been different if we had just assigned some boundaries. I’m also frustrated because it seems like we put a lot of time and energy into discipline to not get any results. I’d rather just live in “lala-land” like a lot of parents and have no expectations. It seems like it must be a much less exhausting and happier place.
Sean then got frustrated with my epic “debbie downer” routine and felt like I was saying everything was his fault. Meanwhile, the monkeys are just causing havoc and making me question becoming a family of three, four or five at any point in the past 4 years.
We escaped from Jason’s Deli and as I’ve pointed out before, we are gluttons for punishment, so we still headed to the pumpkin patch. While we were there for less than an hour, Bree had to poo twice, Bauer refused to walk (he only wanted Sean to carry him) for the first half of the trip, Bree disappeared for a few minutes, we melted down on the tractors and the only happiness we found was playing in the hay house for kids.
I love taking pictures at this event and had no motivation to capture any moment that might remind me of this day. I had a hard time mustering any excitement over my children and the pumpkins. After the last meltdown by Bree, we headed to the car. Tears (mine) would not stop flowing as I just kept thinking, “This is one of my favorite family traditions (now of 3 years) and I just felt like it was ruined.” I knew that it was ruined mostly by me and my inability to handle my own hormones and thus meltdown, but still, it was ruined.
Luckily I got to go to work for the rest of the late afternoon/night and poor Sean had to deal with the non-napping Bree and the evening agenda with the kids.
We both were mad at the whole situation. Where was the fun part of parenting?? Where was the fun part of being partners in this whole game?? What the hell were we going to do with 3 kids in a few weeks??
We went to bed still frustrated and not even really being able to communicate what was so bad about the day. We both just felt defeated by each other, by our kids, by the choices we have made. We wanted to be so much more than we were that afternoon for everyone.
So Monday rolled around and we were all ready to have a fresh start. Tried to take the kids to school and my car was dead. Sean jumped it and we were on our way. Dropped kids off and came back to a car that was dead. The humor was not being lost of me at this point.
Luckily my two co-workers were able to come jump me again and help me get a new battery for the swagger wagon.
At 10:45am, I officially got to work.
The day was fast and furious as always, and when I was on my way to get the kids, I laughed to myself. As much as I wanted to start fresh today, I had forgotten the most important step. It was so appropriate that my “battery” was dead…because I had plum worn it out the day before. A single jump-start was not going to fully renew it. I instead had to assess what had happened, acknowledge that there was a lot of anger/sin going on inside of me, ask for forgiveness, and just get mentally and emotionally prepared to embrace my role as a mom again. It took a couple jump-starts and a brand new $80 battery to get this done (at least for today).
After we got home from school yesterday, instead of rushing to get dinner ready, the whole family played outside. It felt good to want to capture some of this unplanned fun in pictures….
It was a fun hour of just us playing with just us at our home. I seem to forget how much our kids love our house sometimes and most of the time would be happy just playing here. I think I’ve gotten so caught up in how the 3rd baby is going to change our lives, that I’m attempting to over-program my kiddos a little. I want to cram as much “fun” into these last few weeks as possible and I may need to redefine my definition of “fun” to match more of the their version.
Today we played outside all morning…it was a beautiful reminder why I Iove my part-time working gig. They may drive me a little (or a lot) crazy most days, but in the end they are what makes all of this worth it!
