Then We Both Cried

Ooh, yesterday was so, so bad.

It started out bad, with a headache and a backache for me. Have I mentioned how badly my daughters need to move into their own beds? Yes? Sorry, I must have blanked it out.

Anyway, I dragged my aching back out of bed at 9:00. Tom does me the favor of getting up with the girls on Sundays and even making them leave me alone from 7:00 until 9:00, at which time Alyssa came into my room to tattle on her dad. He wouldn't let her eat some cereal for breakfast.

Sunday's are the only day of the week that I make her eat an egg. She thinks it's half an egg, since she will only eat them scrambled.

I got up and made bacon and eggs, as is the norm. Alyssa bitched and moaned the entire time she ate her 'half' egg. Olivia ate like she hadn't eaten in a week.

Tom nibbled toast. You know how annoying it is to be around a man who is dieting? VERY, that's how annoying it is. Ugh!!

I took some Aleve and ate my eggs and some bacon because...mmmm, cholesterol.

Then I got on with the laundry, and the sweeping of the kitchen and the loading of the dishwasher, and getting Olivia dressed and making Alyssa sad when I told her she couldn't play with the Aqua Sand because it makes a big supid mess. Then I gave in, let her play with at the kitchen table and escaped up the stairs to nap, afterall, at this point, I'd been awake for almost three whole hours.

Forty-five minutes later, Alyssa was by the bed, asking me if I'd help her clean up the Aqua Sand because..."It's so hard to get it off the table and the floor and it's messy."

I know...

I went down and reswept the kitchen floor and then went out on the back deck. It was a lovely day yesterday, very little wind, temps in the mid-80s. After looking at the garden (yay, one of the six tomato plants has flowers on it. We WILL have tomatoes), picking fiv raspberries off the scrawny plants we transplanted from our old yard last fall, and watching Tom put cages around the tomato plants I told the girls we were going to Gram's to swim.

Oooh, the delight that raced through the house as they search for swimsuits and towels and goggles and sun screen (oh, wait that was me searching for the sun screen.) And for the record, I do wear a swimsuit into the pool, without a t-shirt over it. I'm working on accepting my body as it is even as I try to get to the point where I can and want to change it.

Once we were in the car for the three-mile drive to my mom's house, I decided that momma needed caffeine. So we took a slightly longer route and went to the Burger King drive-thru for chicken fries (for the girls, really!) and frozen Cokes, or a cherry Icee if you're Alyssa.

I don't know why, but I went ahead and got Olivia a frozen Coke. I should have just shared mine with her, but...I didn't wanna.

So I got them, and Alyssa put Olivia's in the cup holder that is built into O's carseat.

About a mile down the road, O says, "Here."

I reach back and she hands me her frozen Coke, upside down. UPSIDE DOWN! Which means I get a handful of frozen Coke.

I take the cup and screech, "Seriously? Did you really do that, Olivia? You know better!"

I look in the rearview mirror and she's got her hand over her eyes. She hates it when I yell.

I try to reign in my fury but it's not easy. I'm so angry. I'm tired, I have a headache and now, I have a sticky hand. I know, it sounds so stupid now but at the time it felt HUGE. I mean, if she didn't want to drink the stupid thing, why couldn't she have just left it in her cupholder, right.

I managed not to yell anymore but when we pulled into my mom's driveway, I got out of the car, wrenched O's door open, said through clenched teeth, "Get out of this car now!"

And then I got her out of the car (not violently, thank you Lord) and placed her on the ground, I said angrily, "Just walk away."

And that did it. She burst into tears. My baby just started wailing.

I turned and picked her up. I didn't yank her into my arms. I just picked her up and rubbed her back. But I was still mad.

My mom came out and I explained why I was so angry. She took Olivia from me even though O didn't really want her to do so.

They went inside and I went back to the car to clean up the mess.

And I saw...that she'd probably handed me the cup of frozen Coke because it had spilled onto her. The cupholder is at a weird angle, the cup that had been placed in it was probably top-heavy and had spilled against her, dripping frozen Coke onto her carseat and her leg.

She was just trying to get it out of her lap by handing it to me. But she doesn't the words to tell me that, so she just had to sit there and listen to me bitch and yell and be hateful.

She's four. She doesn't talk quite as well as some four year olds. Perhaps she speaks as well as some others, though, but not as well as Alyssa did at her age. She's four and she was cold and her mother was being horrible to her.

I started crying myself as I cleaned out the car.

I went inside.

O had stopped crying because Gram had pulled out some new shoes. Olivia was prancing around wearing beautiful new silver shoes.

I picked her up, told her her new shoes were beautiful and hugged her close, whispering, "Oh baby, I'm so sorry. It wasn't your fault and I'm so, so sorry."

And then we both started sobbing. My guilt was making me cry and my crying was making her cry.

Finally, I pulled myself together and we went swimming.

I told my mom that I feel awful because there's no excuse for my behavior. My mom said, "Sure there is. You're chronically sleep-deprived. You're so tired you can't think straight and you NEVER get time to yourself. Going to work doesn't count. You never get a break. And so sometimes, you snap. Is it fair? No, but don't beat yoruself up over it."

I love my mom. She's just all kinds of awesome. She never gets a break either so she gets it. I'm very, very lucky.

And in the end, Olivia forgave me. I can't ask for more than that.