I didn’t do a great job today. Everything seemed fine at first, normal Saturday morning at home. First nice day outside. In fact, we were playing outside when Jason left to go get a haircut. During the hour he was gone, the dog got out because Maria was playing with the front door. {She knows not to play with that door – I’ve told her 6,000 times. In fact, I had JUST told her not to play with the door.}. So I ran frazzled down the driveway after the dog wondering if I had a recent enough picture of him on my phone to make flyers with {Also I wondered, has running always been this hard?}.
Got the dog back and was, you know, a little annoyed. Carmelo of course just HAD to fall off his bike and get an incredibly minor red mark on his knee that prompted him to scream as if I had personally assaulted him. {Does he not understand that I just chased the dog down the street and have not recovered emotionally OR physically from that?}.
Brelynn was, wait. What was Brelynn doing? I didn’t have time to check because Maria walked up to me and said she had to poop. The problem was that she had her hand holding her rear. A clear indicator that by “needed to” she meant “I already started to….”. We rushed inside with the barely caught dog slung under my arm. I was mad. Really mad. This was the 3rd time this week she pooped herself. She is almost 5 and has been potty-trained since I’ve known her and I know this wasn’t an accident because she looked me clear in the face to tell me she just didn’t want to stop playing. She willingly decided to poop herself. {What is she, 4?!} My ability to clearly think was breaking down. Angrier by the second. I told her she was putting a pull-up on. She started to scream in my face {not crying scream – angry scream}. “Go to your room Maria, just get away from me right now.” I stormed {yes, stormed} past my other 2 kids rolling my eyes and shaking my head walking into the office where I often go to quietly curse.
The remaining 40 minutes was a power struggle of wills between myself and an almost 5-year-old. Fits of rage from such a tiny body. 40 minutes of trying to be firm about the pull-up but not angry. Not mean. 40 minutes of having to leave her room because her yelling and hitting were out of control {and so was I}. When Jason got home she was sleeping. Wore herself out. I gave what I could of an exhausted run down of events and excused myself to take a quick shower.
It was a short shower. Just enough to wash my hair, soap my pits and recklessly swipe a razor across my legs. I pulled the shower curtain back when it happened. The tension rod slipped and fell hard on my head. It was loud. Jason came rushing in to see me standing in the shower, naked, hurt, flawed and teary eyed.
So what DO you do when the shower curtain falls on your head? You ugly cry. Silently. Into your towel. And when it stops being quite so ugly and you can finally see through your sadness, you seek the Lord…..and ask him: What the heck?
Lauren Blauw 