The Day Mom Lost It

Today I lost it.  I'm not proud.  

It's been brewing for awhile.  I can see that now.  Afterwards, anyway.  The culmination of this last year has taken its toll; the change in school routine from public school to homeschool, not seeing their friends on a regular basis, sports being canceled, change in routine in general.  It's been hard and it's finally come to a breaking point. 

The last several weeks my boys have not been themselves.  They constantly fight, argue and scream at each other.  They have been defiant, disrespectful and rude.  They complain about everything.  This is not how they typically act and it has been wearing us all down.  I've worked with them on these things, trust me, I have.  We work on it daily.

I normally can keep it together.  Despite homeschooling the boys, working from home 30 hours a week, keeping up socially, scheduling and attending appointments and therapy schedules, monitoring and working with autism daily, helping navigate health issues and doing all the things needed in maintaining our home, I can usually keep it together. 

The things we do to get a little "me time" (she says as she locks herself in her closet-the only room in the house that's kid free)

But today I couldn't keep it together.  The day started with arguing and fighting from the start.  Then there were autism meltdowns that needed redirecting and rigid behavior that needed monitoring, all before breakfast.  After breakfast we started our school routine. And things continued to spiral downward from there.  I broke.  I yelled and cried and locked myself in the bathroom for 20 minutes.  The boys saw it all.  Part of me despises that.  The other part of me thinks maybe that's ok.  

How did we get here?  My sweet, caring and thoughtful children are not themselves. They've turned into gremlins.  And if I'm being totally transparent here, I've been feeling invisible lately myself.  Sort of like standing in a crowded room screaming at the top of your lungs and no one hears you. Except it's day after day working myself ragged doing ALL THE THINGS. 

During my 20 minute time out I realized we need to change things up.  We need a fresh perspective.  At the beginning of our homeschool adventure I was most excited to take time and attention to building the character of the boys.  Today I feel like a failure.  Their actions do not reflect what we've worked on.  I know this is just a small blip in time.  I know we can turn things around. A little extra hard work is all we need.  A little intentionality can go a long way for the things that are most important in life. 

Tomorrow is a new day.  I'll get up and do it all again- hopefully better.  Because that's what we do as moms, right?  We get up, we show up and we get things done.  Jesus, take the wheel.