Motherhood: The Ugly Side

I have always said I would share the good, bad, and ugly along this motherhood journey of mine, so I am here today to share a story of the bad, and ugly.

While my husband is kicking ass and taking names in order for us to be one step closer to reaching our family goals, his new job unfortunately comes with some traveling for the first little while. My toddler’s overall cooperativeness has definitely taken a hit with our new household adjustment. This particular morning he did NOT want to leave the house and go to daycare.

The morning started off great, we did our usual routine and he was in a great mood. When it was time to get our boots on, things took a turn for the worst. My toddler absolutely refused to get ready. The more I tried, to more he refused. He ended up kicking and screaming and running in every direction except for the door. He ran into our living room and started throwing everything and anything he could find while screaming “No go”. This behaviour is so unlike him, and so while it was breaking my heart, I also knew that I couldn’t fold. The old me would have just thrown my hands in the air, and given up thinking it’s just not worth the fight, we will just stay home. However, I know that if he continues to win battles like these, I will never have the upper hand, or his respect. While trying to force on his boots, he grabbed my face, pinching and scratching it…Unfortunately, being a human being; I lost my cool and yelled at him, which is something I rarely do.  I INSTANTLY regretted it and my heart broke into a million pieces…he started to cry even more….shocker. We both needed to calm down before going any further. I sat him on our couch and walked out of the room. After taking a few deep breaths, and holding back tears, I went back in and asked my crying toddler if he wanted a hug. He said yes. We both got down onto the floor and he sat in my lap. This child squeezed me so hard I had to fight back the tears. He just wouldn’t let go. So we just sat there for about 5 minutes hugging and taking deep breaths. He calmed down, I calmed down… I did apologize to him for yelling but also explained to him that he hurt mommy and that it was not okay to do that. Once we were both completely calm (so I thought) I explained to him that we had to get going…. And it started all over again. He did however have on his boots so I just threw on his coat, and carried him to the car kicking and screaming. I had the worst struggle getting him into his car seat, but as soon as we started to drive, he settled down and was perfectly fine. He had a great day at daycare, and was happy as a clam for the rest of the day.

So…Yes, this is an adjustment for all of us. But what I have come to learn is that even though my morning started off like an absolute nightmare, I can’t let one incident (no matter how hard it was) shape how I will take on the rest of the day. It was 20 minutes out of my entire day. Yes, I still feel awful for yelling at him, yes my face still hurts from where he hit me, and yes, I 100% probably should have handled it in a different way… but you know what, I’m not perfect and motherhood is H.A.R.D. Next time I will probably handle it in a different way because motherhood is also trial and error… I didn’t get an instruction manual for this, did you?

Photo credit: Canva

Get up, shake it off, and keep going. We got this.

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