Mother.Of.The.Year.

That's me.  Mother of the flippin' year.  I swear, sometimes I feel so inadequate and ill-prepared for the challenges my kids bring to the table every day.  Andrew and Hannah have both been super-cranky and whiny with Chris since I returned to school on Wednesday.  This, in turn, leads him to be super-cranky and whiny.  Fun times.  Last night was baaaad.  He was frustrated, I was tired, and in expressing his frustration, he made comments about how *I* ruined their schedules, *I* ruined their eating habits, *I* have spoiled them rotten and left him to clean up my mess.

OK, maybe that's not what he said, but its what I heard.  I started all this self-talk that included a lot of beating myself up over stupid stuff that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

So anyway, this is where I kinda was proud of myself.  We've been sitting down and having 5 minutes of uninterrupted time together, just us (no TV, no computers, no kids, no music...just us, talking) and last night during that time, when Chris asked how I was doing, I told him.  I didn't wait for it to become a fight, I didn't let it fester until I exploded, I wasn't angry when I said it...I just told him.  I told him I felt like an awful mom, and yes, it was because many of the things he had said had come across more negative than he intended them to be.  At first he was defensive and thought I was being ridiculous because of course he didn't think I was a bad mom.  I think he finally realized that it didn't matter what he meant to say...it only mattered what I heard.  So anyway, he apologized and was very, very sorry for unknowingly making me feel that way.   I apologized for being oversensitive and all is well again.

 Don't get me wrong...I am still a very imperfect mom who makes a million mistakes a day, but hearing my kids tell me they love me, seeing their huge smiles when I come home from work, and hearing my husband reassure me that I am a good mama to his babies...That makes me feel better than any medication or chocolate in the world.