Or I should wake up and smell the day-old coffee...
Now, it's true that Tim and Chey are a.ma.zing, but that is NOT because of me. Dear lord and bless their souls, it is despite me. The only thing I can give myself credit for was to have the sense God gave me to just get out of their ways and let them become who He created. I didn't try to impose my agenda or have them fulfill a missing component out of my life. (In fact, I always wanted a license plate frame that said "I do not live vicariously through my children.")
That is what I do right. What I do wrong is a list that goes on for days.
Poor Dia, in fact, had to endure my flawed parenting just this past Monday. Even better, it was my I'm Alive Day - one in which, of all days, I should have just been grateful to simply be. But no. Instead I woke up all pity partying that I'm single and likely to stay that way forever (I told you it was a pity party). A friend had introduced me to a guy who called the night before... we'd talked for a couple of hours actually and he was really nice, but definitely not for me. This scenario keeps playing out: Katie meets guy, guy is nice, guy has some pretty major flaw (like a felony), Katie doesn't want guy, Katie convinces herself there are no great guys left. Rinse and repeat. ANYway - that was what I woke up with on my I'm Alive Day. Oh, poor me.
Piling on to my misery, I had to reschedule the day because Tim was sick and so couldn't do what we'd originally planned. So I'm grumpy about that too. Dia wanted to go down to the Discovery Museum (the Cube) because she loves it, but it's one of those places where the kids are much more entertained than the grown-ups and I wanted to do something either novel or more interesting to me. I thought maybe we could start with breakfast at a place in town I'd never been that supposedly has the best breakfast in L.A. OK? No. It's closed on Mondays. So I'm grumpy about that as well. I recoup and decide we'll have lunch at the Bowers Museum across from the Cube and... it's closed Mondays too. At this point I'm all types of pissy.
All the while Dia was trying so amazingly hard to cheer me up. She was saying how we always have fun at the Cube and how we'll see something new there and how everything is good. To further try to cheer me, she toddled off and got herself dressed top to bottom all on her own and even did her hair. The hair is a big, big deal. She has crazy curly hair and it's a challenge for anyone to do, much less a five year old without the best fine motor skills in the world. When she presented herself to me she had the biggest smile on her face and I could see the pride literally emanating from her. So what did I do?
I exclaimed "Oh, you did your own hair! Wow!" But the good parenting ended there. I attempted to fix a bump on the top of her hair saying "let me smooth that out" and she shied away from me like a spooked horse. That's when I lost all sanity. I scolded her saying that she promised she'd be good all day and that she promised we wouldn't fight over teeth brushing or baths or any of the usual things she protests daily which includes hair brushing so just let me smooth this out! She backed away even further from me. So because I'm all kinds of adult here, I picked up my purse and threw it to the ground (what the...???) - and she started crying. She was scared because, in fairness, I never act like that - and she was crushed because she'd been so proud of herself.
She went into her room, closed the door and, still crying, vented her frustrations to her stuffed animals. I walked away from her, went back into my room, saw the purse on the floor, and immediately felt like the stupidest person alive. I turned on my heels and pushed the door to her room open.
"I am the worst human being." I announced to Dia. "I am just the worst thing ever." And then I told her how I knew she was so proud that she did her own hair and she was just trying to cheer me up and she was doing absolutely nothing wrong and I just blew it. I told her how I can't get that moment in time back but that I wish so much I could. I told her I was sorry. She hugged me back tightly and accepted my apology, but honestly she had every right not to. It was just so shitty of me.
I didn't throw anything this time and it wasn't directed at Dia, but I did it again.
On the way to the Cube we got stuck in a huge traffic jam. It took an extra hour to get there. Once finally there, I paid $4 for parking but there was no parking. Eventually, after doing several laps through their parking lot, I was forced to go park at the nearby mall. The one that you can park in for free. I've spent $4 to park in the free parking at the mall and there's no parking there either. As I'm driving around searching for one empty spot, my mind is racing with "it took so long to get here, it's going to close in a few hours, it's packed so we won't be able to play with anything and this whole idea sucks." So I express that. AT TOP VOLUME. Yup - driving around the mall parking lot, trying to find a single parking space, I am screaming at the top of my lungs about how much this sucks. And? Dia starts crying again. (Again... reminding you that she is NOT used to this out of me at all, so I'm scaring her no end.) "Pop the bubbles, Mama" she cried desperately "Pop the negative bubbles."
Sigh.
I found a parking space, parked, got her out of the car seat, picked her up and carried her all the way to the Cube. Quietly this time, I talked to her the whole way saying I was so sorry, I was done with the tantrums and no matter what she was the best thing in my life that day and I was so happy to be alive to have her.
We ended up having a wonderful day despite me. We met my mom for dinner before driving back up to L.A. It was a nice little Chinese restaurant and Dia ordered vegetable egg rolls that were supposedly quite delicious. I don't know because she wouldn't share them with me. "After your behavior earlier today, do you think you deserve them?" she asked. "No, sweetie, I don't in a million years." I thought that was completely fair.
Kec
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