The messy middle of motherhood!

 Gosh! Being a mom has to be the most challenging role in life ever!

Why aren't there any Nobel Prizes for moms? 

My day starts with 'I love you, Amma, so much. You are the best'. Then around evening it goes to being 'Ughhh..Can you stop it, please?' and by nighttime it is 'Mummmaaa.. you are the worst. I hate you!'

 Every single day. All in a span of 8-9 hours alone! That too, not just from one, but from the two mini humans that I willingly created. Thankfully, the third is still way too young to get on board, but I am sure that's not too far either. 

I don't care that no one tells me this, but in my head, I am supermom. I am 42 years old. But to date, not once have I had the courage to raise my voice at my mom or dad. 

Yes, I have been frustrated & exasperated plenty and often, but like every other '90s teen, I bury my feelings and move on with my life like nothing matters. Therapy classified these as childhood trauma that remains hidden in my personality. So, like any other confused new generation mom, I decided to break the stereotype and years of generational trauma by promising my kids that their childhood would be very different from mine. Look where it has landed me! I was not prepared for how different my motherhood would be from my mother's and everyone before her!

Don't get me wrong. I love my minis. To bits. Every bit of them. But I just dread knowing that this is what is in store for me for the next 10-15 years! If I am only barely surviving the tweens and pre-teens era, how in the world will I get through teens and adolescence?

Well, in all honesty, I probably could. If all I was doing was just being a mom. But with everything else that I have got going on, I cannot even spend time to take an extra breath, let alone equip myself to be the calm and nurturing growth counsellor my kids need. 

I am living in a space where I have to constantly remind myself that this too will pass. And that I need to cherish and relish every bit of what I have today. Because eventually, their needs and my role in their life will slowly evolve until I become non-existent or irrelevant. I will merely be a guest with a visiting pass in the life they have built. That will probably be when I ache that they want me as much as they do today. 

Wonder where all this is coming from? It is merely the guilt taking over. Plain, stubborn, all-consuming mom guilt. My excitement for the week away is now getting overtaken by this guilt. I hate relinquishing my control. It is like a bone-deep discomfort that comes from years of being the one who knows. Who knows which snack they'll actually eat. Who knows what the bedtime routine needs to look like to avoid a meltdown. Who knows which one needs a little extra reassurance on hard days. That knowledge lives in me, and handing it off, even temporarily, even to someone capable and loving, feels like a kind of loss. I believe that my kids are best taken care of when I am the one in control. Even when that control costs me everything.

I just need to work on convincing myself that letting go for a week isn't abandonment. It's trust. That I'll come back more whole than when I left.

I know for sure that the guilt isn't going anywhere. But I'm going anyway. And if I am such a wreck already, I know that come Monday morning, I am going to be in even worse condition. Because if there is one thing that gets to me more than this, it is my fear of flying! Especially in those teeny tiny tin cans for a short flight. It is a short 40-minute flight to the windy city (my favourite city in this country!). But I am going to be a complete disaster even before I leave home in the wee hours of the morning. Where's the tequila when you need it??