The Fish Pond: Evil Mom

This morning was, unfortunately, a typical morning for us - BigDaddyFish has that problem with getting awake in the morning, so as per usual, it is up to me to get the big kids up and either out the door to the bus stop or school, in the case of Trout, or ready to go or drive him to school, in the case of Little Man. Some days BDF drives Little Man to school on the way to work, but since he can't get up very well, they are invariably late, and Little Man prefers when I take him to school because we are usually on time. We live a suburb away from Little Man's school, though, so it takes 20 minutes or so to get him there - if there are no traffic problems. But this is DC - that's a HUGE IF. Rain or snow? Fuggedaboutit.

There are at least three problems we have every school day that both big kids go to school (Little Man only goes 3 days/week).

I am hugely pregnant and have trouble waking up myself, let alone anyone else, and Trout has been turning off her alarm and going back to sleep.
Trout and Little Man are both unbelievably distractable, mostly Trout, and have major issues focusing on getting dressed and getting out the door.
BDF insists on conditions being "exactly right" before he will get out of the bed.

The kids' drawers are extremely well organized, so picking clothes is an easy thing. I get up and let them know if it is cold or warm weather, and I expect them to dress accordingly. This is usually not a problem, but occasionally Trout will get nutso about the clothes she has available. Our rule is as long as it's appropriate for the weather and conditions (like no fancy dresses on Art day when they will be painting, sneakers and pants on PE days) it's okay, but we WILL point out things like clothes not matching. If they don't care, fine, but they won't learn how to match if we don't tell them when they don't. The problem is that they don't stay on task unless someone is standing over them. Trout invariably starts to play with Sunny, or hug her or pester her, or try to dress her, instead of focusing on herself. This usually pisses Sunny off, and then the fighting and crying ensues. Or she'll go in and pester Little Man, who gets pissed, yells, and frequently comes out swinging (we're working on that right now). We have a rule of no tv/playing with toys before school, so that shouldn't be an issue, but they will always find SOMETHING to play with, even if it's just a pencil. It takes them 10 minutes just to put on shoes. This has been driving me crazy all school year, and it has to stop.

It's not that they are incapable of doing what they need to do. On weekends, they do it all themselves just fine. If a friend was at the door asking to go play, they'd be dressed and out the door in about 25 seconds. I KNOW they can do it. I will have a baby in less than 30 days. They need to do it themselves. We've talked about all this, we've tried reward systems - nothing. Any ideas would be helpful.

Then there is BDF. I try to be sympathetic about the waking up issue - I know it is not his fault; I've seen it in action in at least two other family members. Their blood pressure just drops too low when they sleep, and it takes for-fricking-ever for it to come up in the morning. But I can't handle it anymore. He likes to have the kids lay on his legs in the morning, which works because it puts pressure on the legs and helps bring up his blood pressure, and also has the added bonus of giving the kids "snuggle time" with him, but it DOES distract them from getting ready for school. Then he occasionally has some attitudinal peculiarities that I won't get into, but suffice to say that they interfere with getting out the door in the morning. He is nearly always late to everything, especially if it happens in the morning. Drives me up the fricking wall.

This morning, things were so bad that I yelled at the big kids to shut up and get dressed at least 4 times each. They decided it would be funny to mimic me and began repeating everything I said. BDF would not get out of the bed. Sunny decided to have a meltdown because she wants my attention and doesn't want me giving attention to the bigger kids, so she cried for at least a half hour straight, despite my efforts to pick her up, hold and hug her, and ask for her help in delivering juice boxes to everyone to help out (she usually likes to be a big girl helper). BDF had told me he would take Little Man to school, but Little Man has to be there at 9, and at 8:30 BDF was still in bed and hadn't even gotten in the shower yet. Trout has to be on the bus at 8:20 or so; she missed the bus, but couldn't be dropped off at school until 8:35 due to school rules.

I yelled, I screamed, I cried. I feel terrible that I was so mean to my kids this morning. I feel guilty that I'm resentful that I never get to sleep in and get up "when I'm ready to" like BDF every morning - when do I get to get up when I'm ready and only have to take care of myself, and maybe a baby, instead of me needing to do everything for everyone else? How can I get those who are capable of it to take responsibility for getting themselves dressed and ready to go out the door, so that I can focus on babies and getting breakfast ready? Of course, since I'm hugely pregnant and my hormones are out of whack, I'm now picturing all the worst case scenarios for the rest of the day/week/pregnancy, and am freaking out that something will happen to my kids or me before I can apologize for this morning and be nice to them again, or that I won't be able to cope at all and will have to pull them out of school and the police will come after us because we can't get our kids to school on time.

Something has to give. I'm afraid it's my sanity.

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When you first wake up, shake BDF awake, tell him "I'm 17 months pregnant, I'm sleeping in. Dealing with all that..." and wave your hand around as if to indicate everything outside of the covers "...is your job now," and then smile sweetly and start snoring.

Posted by: Uncle Orca | October 18, 2006 at 02:05 PM