A FireWife's Epic Failure as a Mother

Recently a friend of mine from college sent me a message on social media.  We talk all the time in comments and on each other's walls, but only rarely do we message each other.  If I may so bold to summarize her message, essentially she asked how in the world I was so put together with 4 kids and a firefighter that is gone so much.  I always seem to take things in stride. Whereas she, with three kids and a husband with a more traditional job, felt like she was always struggling to get by...especially when he is gone.

You would think that I would have been thrilled with such a compliment, but instead, I felt ashamed.  I am not put together.  I am a mess.  I have metl downs and yell more than I would like.  I am impatient and snippy when I feel overwhelmed and under supported.  I am stubborn and pigheaded when I feel that it was "someone else's job" to do something...and I refuse to do it. I am not perfect.  I am horribly flawed. 

Even as I am writing this blog, literally sitting down in my living room for the first time since 6:30am (It is 7:40pm...on a shift day.) I am sniping at my youngest in my head. Why, do you ask?  Because she is asking about the Packer game while I am trying to type this post.  Mind you.  Her face time with me has been VERY limited this week.  I have gone back to work.  I was at work from 6:30am until 3:30pm.  At Training Monday-Wednesday from 4pm-8pm. (Oh so IRONICALLY, it was training for teachers on relieving stress through breathing.) Today, I had the most stressful training for a gradebook that I have ever experienced...and got nothing done that I needed to get so I am ready on Tuesday.  From there I grabbed the three youngest muppets...the oldest was at football practice...having to bike because I was at work...and take D to my dad's so he could take her judo.  We ran to Target because my polar bears had NO food in the house, picked up N from practice twenty after seven.  And I am home.  

So, snippiness, driving through rush hour after dropping off D.  (Mind you, this is after driving nearly an hour to make the 25 minute drive there.) B and O were singing as loud as possibly and clapping, horribly off-beat, to And All the People Said Amen by Matt Maher.  And I snapped at them.

Yup.  Epic.  Failure.

I snapped at my kids because the Spirit moved them.  

Fail.

But, my stress level was stronger than I was.  

Excuses.

The people driving recklessly in the parking lot formerly known as I-94 and the two syllabi I have yet to finish writing and the picnics that we need to attend and host even though I am SO not ready for that first day and I have so much to do. I need to pick up fabric for a table in my room and my hubby has to help me mount my map bracket and I need make 200 copies of syllabi and print out rosters and...

Breathe.

I am missing that part.

And because I am missing that part, I am missing out on the joy that my people bring just because the song that moved their soul came on.  Because I have let life consume me.  I have given up control to stress and life is now controlling me.

So not a happy place for a control freak to find herself. 

I am going to leave you know.  As my muppets are enjoying the Packer game...and I am trying to set up my last prep in my grade book.  It only has 6 pages of standards.  And each standard needs to have 3 pieces of evidence. And...I am trying so hard not to be an epic failure.  I am a FireWife and I am Fire Strong. 

Just not today.