True Me Tuesday

Yesterday, after we'd spent over an hour at the grocery store buying school supplies and arguing over what cereals we can and cannot eat, I nearly bit Vicbowin's head off.

Well... okay, I did bite her head off.

I was unloading the groceries into the back of the truck. I was tired, my feet hurt, Remewin was fussy from the four shots she'd received that morning at the doctor. . . and I'm now making excuses. . .

I'll just tell you the facts and let you decide, on this True Me Tuesday.

The kids were all sitting in the air conditioned car (windows down to blow out the heat) and after I was done returning the cart I hopped into the drivers seat next to Vicbowin.

I was slammed with a wall of hot air. I looked down and saw that the heat had been turned on and was going full blast. I looked over at Vicbowin and she giggled and I lost it! I yelled at her saying how 'not funny' that was. I gestured at her siblings in the back seat and explained how hot they could have gotten and that they could all be dead now!

"It's 80 degree's outside!" I hollered.

Vicbowin curled in on herself and whimpered that she was just trying to be funny.


Now as I look back on it my stomach turns and I feel excessively (and yet not enough) nauseous. I yelled at my child for the dumbest thing!

And what's worse is I do it all the time. All these great memories I could be having with them and what do I do? Convince my kids that they're slowly killing their siblings.... all at volumes well beyond the 'still, small voice' level.

I try to tell myself that I'm not the only mother in the world who yells (and screams) at her kids, but then I have this little nagging voice that says something to me like "Yeah, the other ones are called child abusers."

I don't like that answer so I brush it off and try to hide it. Like it's my big family secret.

Then I feel sick all over again. I blame my behavior on my children, I hide it from the public and I get mad when my kids say anything about it. What kind of mother does that make me?

All these things go through my head on quiet nights and I have to repeat to myself over and over again, I'm not a bad mom--I'm not a bad mom--other mom's yell too.

It's hard to tell though. Especially online when we spend so much time regailing the crazy things our children have done in joking, humor-filled tones.

It doesn't help when I see pictures of bright smiling children on the internet and think sadly:

"They'll never need counseling."

So, for my second True Me Tuesday post I thought I'd tell you all that I yell at my kids. A lot of times it's over really dumb stuff--like whether or not they wear their shoes while they take in the groceries or for not putting the bowls in the sick instead of on the counter.

I don't have a home where we all sit around washing dishes and laughing. There has absolutely never, ever been a day where my husband and I and our kids washed the car with bright smiles and soaked clothes.

So I'm throwing out this painfully, terrifyingly honest post today because firstly I want to send out feelers about other moms. Do you yell too?

Secondly, it's the whole gyst of the True Me Tuesday posts... to be honest in the hopes that I'm not the only one muddling through this whole thing.

Please, no hate mail. ::pleading voice::