Mama Mama Quite Contrary

I had to laugh when I saw this crying baby photo link up party .  When Vivi was a baby, I don't think we got any pictures of her crying.  As our only child, her tears were a rare occurrence and I never thought to document the crying when it happened.  I was more concerned with putting an end to the tears. As if that would ever happen with twins!  Photos with one or more crying babies were an inevitability.  So here you have it, my contribution to the link up: Eliya giving those lungs a workout.  Jude trying to tune her out.  Week #1 Jude screaming and the poor big sister not sure what to make of it.  My personal favorite since this pretty much sums up Jude's first year of life. Unidentified screaming child in the background.  It's probably Jude. When the babies got going, so did Vivi.  Oh, and mommy.  Mommy always cried too. I'm also linking up to Simply Modern Mom's Glimpse into Motherhood .

For the most part, I think I am a good mother.  I feed, clothe, and clean my children.  I tell them I love them.  I give them independence and encouragement.  I read to them and play games with them and drive them places.  I try to utilize positive reinforcement. Except when I don't.  There are times when I lose it.  When I throw a (plastic) plate across the kitchen because it is 8:00 at night and I told you it was bed time and not snack time.  When the whining is so insufferable that all I can do is shout "STOP IT NOW!!!!!!" at the top of my lungs so that I stun you into silence.  When I have to ask you for the tenth time to put the god-damned markers away because I am fed-up with scrubbing ink off the walls and floors.  When I tell you, "You know what?  I don't actually like that drawing." because I'm feeling spiteful that that you called dinner "disgusting." I've done all those things.  Some of them I've done more than on...

I hate the freaking mall. It is the last place I want to go when I need to do holiday shopping. The crowds, the nasty fast food smell, the stores that sell unoriginal Chinese-made crap-- it is all just too much for this mama to bear. And yet, out of necessity, I found myself there last week trying to find some plain old long sleeved white onesies for the Turtles' thrift store Christmas dresses. It seemed like it would be a quick trip. I would take Vivi to the mall and my husband would take the Turtles off to the local Medicare office building in a desperate attempt to try and figure out why he hasn't been paid for the last nine months of work. (Alas, his pay has been foiled by a Kafka-esque scenario involving a change of address form. It would almost be funny if it wasn't our damn livelihood. But I digress...) Anyway, back to the mall... We had no luck with the onesies and as Vivi and I were hightailing it around a corner trying desperately to get back out to the da...

I don't seem to be lacking in anger these days. This home improvement project has me stressed beyond belief and I find myself barely able to keep my mama rage in check. I am exhausted to the core from eight months of little sleep and I have little patience for the usual shenanigans that come with having a three-year old in the house. This morning, Vivi intentionally woke up one of her sisters. Just one. For those of you without twins, one baby awake in the morning while the other sleeps is pretty much a guarantee that there will not be one moment that day when they both will be sleeping. Not one. The rage that erupted from within me after Vivi's transgression was disgusting. A full-on volcano of anger and issues spewing forth with little warning to anyone who happened to be around. I am ashamed of myself. Three-year olds are expected to do annoying stuff like this so why the hell am I the one acting like a child? To top off my nasty mood, my husband called me a control freak. M...

I've been a real cranky pants the last few days. I find myself yelling at Vivi for... well, for being three. It has gotten so bad that her frequent response to my crankiness is to yell back at me, "MAMA! DON'T SAY THAT!!!" I realize on some level that her behavior seldom deserves the response I give her but by the end of the day I am just so spent that it takes very little to push me over the edge. I mean, God, how many times do I have to tell her to stop blowing bubbles in her juice? My crankiness isn't something I save for home. It has made its way into the public domain too. Vivi and I made a quick trip to Whole Foods to get some milk and, as I've been known to do lately, I bribed her with a cookie so she'd hold it together while I got a few more errands done. As we were waiting behind a man and a woman standing in front of the cookie display, I saw the man reach bare-handed into the cupboard and grab a roll. He proceeded to touch the roll all ...