Raw Mom

Wowza. Be forewarned that this post falls entirely under the “motherhood” category, and it may not be G-rated. I am just back from our trip to Denver and am feeling utterly defeated by my toddler. As my husband puts it, she is in charge right now (gee, thanks honey!). I had a moment this morning at the Denver airport, after racing across what must be MILES of terminal, escalators and interminable check in and security lines, where I saw myself from the outside and this little voice inside my head said, I never thought I’d be one of those people. I was about 100 feet from our gate, NUMBER EIGHTY SEVEN, dragging a screaming and crying Morgane by one arm and trying to run as they called our name on the overhead right there along with the final boarding call announcement. It was a scene right out of some bad parenting movie. Upon arriving at the gate, the airline employee asked me to “allow your daughter to calm down” before we boarded the plane. I just about burst into tears as I fully realized what all this looked like to her – frazzled, out of control mother practically abusing her child, late for the plane due to lack of poor planning. My own damn fault. Well, in my defense had I known our gate was #87, perhaps I would have had us leave for the airport earlier than 6 am (which already felt pretty early to me). On the plane, I was overcome with remorse at behaving like a crazy person and expecting Morgane to understand the urgency behind not missing our flight. I was overcome with remorse for the anger I felt at her for holding us back. I played the scene over and over again in my head and beat myself up for not handling it with more grace. Hours later and back home, I am still feeling raw as I plow through all the post-trip busywork to be done. I am trying to give myself a break for being human. What an ending to four days of blissful self-reflection on the yoga mat…hhhmmmm. Perhaps it would have been worse had I not had all the yoga. In my last post I mentioned the “raw and pure emotions” of a 3 year old…well, the emotions of motherhood are pretty raw too. Moms, I would welcome your input on this…