Goodnight, lets try again in the morning

I feel like all parents have had one of ‘those’ days. The days where you’re basically counting down to the kids’ bedtime from the very second you wake up. Where you spend every waking moment of the day, waiting to be alone again. The days when you’re longing to not be touched, to not to be bothered, to not be stressed out any more. They happen to everyone – maybe a little more so to me.

As a mom who works out of the home, these types of days aren’t usually a result of just the kids being crazy – but a completion of work stress, insane schedule, infuriating commute, and then, yes – ridiculous shenanigans from my children. Dinner wasn’t what they wanted, they don’t want to take a shower, now they don’t want to get out of the shower, those pajamas aren’t the right ones, we have to read this book for the forty-seventh night in a row … and all I can think about is my incredibly comfortable bed just two bedrooms away, and how amazing it will be to stick in my ear buds and submerge myself into an audio book for thirty minutes before I close my eyes in an effort to end this terrible, no-good, very-bad day.

Bedtime is my thing. The Husband is always there to back me up, but 99% of the time I take care of showers, the tooth brushing, the jammies, the bedtime stories, the tucking in. Some nights this routine is warm and cuddly, with tickles and sweet whispers and extra stuffed animals, and some nights this routine is abrupt with pecks on the cheeks, pulled covers, and lights out. My patience gone, I collapse into my own bed, and plead to the night to “oh-my-god just let them sleep already.”

I do my best not to feel too guilty about the abrupt nights – I am, after all, only human. Being “on” every day of their childhood is not something I think any human being is capable of (Mary Poppins is not real, y’all – and even she got snippy sometimes). But dammit if I don’t usually wait for them to fall asleep, and then creep back into their rooms to stroke their soft cheeks, kiss their foreheads, and soak in the quiet moment – you know, once they’re not making any actual noise or interacting with me.

The point is – we all need that time to heal, in order to continue being the parents we want to be. To tell our kids abruptly “goodnight dudes – let’s get some sleep and try again in the morning.” To know that while the world is yelling at us constantly, “make every moment count!” we can turn around and yell back, “this moment sucks, I’d like a do-over in the morning!” To recharge our batteries, and then wake up the next morning ready to make as many of those moments count as humanly possible.

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