Growth is a journey worth starting

Send Help Now!

All those “peaceful” and “encouraging” posts I wrote last week (words others used to describe my blogs)…I take them back. I was wrong! There is no hope! I am going down in flames! Help me before I die or kill someone! Send wine please!

What has changed, you might ask? My bundle of joy, my 11 year old Jack came home from Spring Break and my 23 yr old has now been home for over a week. So I will share some brief things about my kids. My 23 year old is a chill, easy going, unemotional, steady, man of few words. My 11 year old is a blaze of passion, fire, emotion, energy, intelligence, humor and smart mouthed sarcasm. So you put all 3 of us in 1400 square foot townhouse with 2 bedrooms (Jack and I are sharing a room now) and I will tell you… there have been some fireworks.

For Jack, my youngest, my true extrovert, this time home with no structure is his worst nightmare. And mine too! Since he has been home, there has been countless hours of Fortnite and Tik Tok. He has had jellybeans for breakfast. He may or may not have gone days without a shower. He has had fits of temper in which things have been broken and hit. Every time I have mentioned school work he has yelled at me this is still his spring break and he won’t be doing any school work anytime soon. He loves to push my buttons- he gets great joy in knowing he is driving me crazy. And his favorite pastimes are saying cuss words (I am a terrible parent) and wrestling with/hitting his older brother until someone cries. Good times right?

Then there is my oldest. He has always been one of my favorite people to hang out with. So easy and calm. What could go wrong there? I get 3 questions a day. If i go past that, he gets very prickly and angry. Even though he is a student at the freaking Naval Academy, he still has the amazing ability to trash a room in 3 hours flat. I KNOW they make him make his bed every single day with corners or whatever. Has he made his bed one time? NO! He also seems to think I am a short order cook. They both do. He also seems to possess this special gift to leave dishes, cups, empty beer bottles, toiletries, golf gloves, hats, wallet and keys strewn all over my house. UGH!!

Why am I telling you this? Am I just trying to throw my kids under the bus? That is not my intent. I suspect there is a very good chance that some of you are struggling with whoever it is you are stranded at home with in this “Stay Safer at Home” season. Really Mayor Cooper? Stay safe at home? Well, you clearly haven’t been quarantined with Jack VanOrman and JR Osborn. Because at this rate, they aren’t safe and neither am I.

What I really want you to know is you are not alone. When your kids are driving you crazy…you don’t need to shame yourself for not getting all crafty and Pinterest-y and having the time of your life being their teacher at home. When you are ready to evict your college student who is all of sudden living full-time at home (an altogether unnatural situation) and you want to kick him/her out or at least make them pay rent of all the trouble they are to you, do not feel bad.  This is a really hard and unusual season for all of us. We don’t have to be perfectly patient and loving with our kids. We do NOT need to feel shame for perhaps wishing our kids would get the coronavirus and need to quarantine for 14 days by themselves where we leave their meals outside their doors but don’t have to talk to them.

Our problem is often not what we feel- it is how we shame ourselves for what we are feeling.  That is why I am sharing all of this with you.  A really mature, wise, reasonable, and some might even call healthy woman is about to lose her freaking mind.  And I only have 2 of them.  Some of y’all really lost your ever loving mind and had more than that- God rest your soul.  So you are not alone!  And our kids don’t have to have the perfect diet, perfect hygiene or read 10 hours a day. We are all doing the best we can here.  Be kind and gracious to yourself.

So if you come looking for me, and you don’t find me, I could be taking up residence in a Caribbean hut under the name of Susie McQueen. I will have red hair, sleep till noon every day, never clean my house, never cook and never take care of another living thing in my life- not even a cat. All I want to say is “This Mom Out” !!!  The younger people have overthrown my rule and I have abdicated to a warmer climate. Best wishes, savages!!