Mothering Woes

I make myself sick. Seriously. I am so the opposite of what a mother should be it's pitiful. I'm on vacation this week. I slept in til 11:15 this morning. That might have something to do with the fact that I stayed up till 1:45 last night. Nevertheless. Here I sit still in my pj's on the computer. My husband has already been home for lunch and I've pissed him off for the day. That's not hard to do. Here's what happened.

Averi and her friend, Savannah, came in to tell me they were hungry. My daughter stood next to me and repeated it 3 times in a row like a parrot, "Mom, we're hungry. Mom, we're hungry. Mom, we're hungry" until I finally got mad and said "Would you stop standing there repeating yourself like a broken record?" The truth is I didn't feel like being interrupted to fix them lunch. Instead I got up and went to the bathroom and when my daughter followed me in there to remind me again they were hungry I said "Go tell your dad."

See, I'm married to Mr. Mom so it's easy for me to put things off on him. What is my freakin' problem? Why can't I just be a normal mother? I live in my own world expecting everything around me just to continue functioning without my help. This has been my pattern my whole marriage. I sometimes wonder why God didn't slap my womb shut years ago. Not that I don't love my kids. I do. I'm just not very good at "mothering" them. I never have been.

I am fascinated with the perfect 50's mom (the Donna Reed, June Cleaver types) because they are so opposite from everything I am. It shames me. Deep down I have much disdain for myself because I can't seem to snap out of my self-centered ways. My husband is by nature a very self-sacrificing person so it goes without saying he's the perfect Dad. There is not much that is self-sacrificing about me so I am constantly in conflict with what I want to do vs. what needs to be done. And guess what? What I want to do usually wins out.

Somebody just slap me and get it over with. I know I'm a pitiful excuse for a mother. If someone had told me years ago how hard it would be I would've given serious thought to having kids. As it was, I had the dream of motherhood just like every other woman and as luck would have it, I was also very fertile. Now here I am 19 years into marriage and 16 years into motherhood and I still feel overwhelmed. It doesn't help that I'm A.D.D. Staying focused is a constant struggle if it's not something that interests me. Right now I have loads of laundry that need my attention but I would rather be doing something fun like blogging.

I remember hearing Dr. Phil say one time that "Life is 90% maintenance." UGH! How true it is and my husband often likes to remind me of it. I subscribe to the mantra that "girls just wanna have fun" but it doesn't seem to be working for me very much. I have managed to alienate my kids to a degree. They're not fooled. I may not say they're an inconvenience but my actions sure show that. My husband has completely disconnected emotionally and I can't blame him. We've even talked about going our separate ways but when it comes down to it, it's not what either of us want. He just says, "I want you to act right". Simple enough if I could only do it.

It's hard to be his gut-wrenchingly honest. I feel like I should win the award for "worst mother on the planet". I have no doubt if I really told other moms how I felt sometimes, they would judge me, especially those supermom types. I envy them. Motherhood comes so easy for them. Why did I get left out? God didn't give me that special "nurturing" gene I needed to be a good mom. Instead I have to struggle against my nature to try and be self-sacrificing and do it with a smile on my face and a pep in my step to boot. Is it any wonder I'm on medication for anxiety?