Blue Moon of Kentucky

This here full moon has taken the place of the peace I had found on Thursday.  It’s gone and left me blue.  When I taught middle school, the teachers would all gather in the halls to discuss the day, and we’d often notice (or at least blame) rowdy behavior on the full moon.  Labor and delivery nurses will often do the same when they have a busy ward.  Same in the jailhouses and on the beat.  Now, that I am a mother, I’m starting to wonder if there might be some truth to it.

Ivy has decided that sleeping is no longer cool.  I mean she is a big kid now, being two and all.  She is getting in bed around 10pm and waking around 8am.  She is not napping most days, and the days that she does, she doesn’t sleep very long.  I am missing my nap time, quiet yoga practice.  Evening alone time with John, that doesn’t require staying up until midnight.  Then, during her waking hours, especially toward evening, she is non-stop and grouchy.  Biting Deladis, climbing whatever she can find to climb, turning sommersaults, using the toilet to get high on shelves in the bathroom to find her “lipstick” (chapstick) so she can put it on with her pretty dress and necklace (Where she gets this, I don’t know.  I don’t wear jewelry or makeup.), lots of crying when something doesn’t turn out just so, and picking the kitten up by the head.  Real nice.  Lots of fun for her mama.

Deladis has “gotten a mouth”.  She simply tells us “no” when she doesn’t like a request or our plans.  I had to chase her all over the playground at the music school on the last day.  She was loudly telling me that “no” she was not going home.  Plain and simple.  Today, during school time, she pretends she doesn’t know things that I know good and well she does.  Picking up her toys is also a “no”.

I’m exhausted.  I’m on the edge.  This is part of motherhood.  The times after you think you’ve gotten it under control – after you feel like things are going to be really good for awhile – when you realize that the next stage is just beginning and you will be adjusting all over again.  I don’t have it all together.  There are times when I feel like what I truly need is a break, and not a short one either.  When I feel like I need to completely change our lifestyle because something is not going right at all, it is so tempting to sit and whine.  To feel bad.  To blame myself.  To accuse myself of not being cut out for the job.  Then, what good does all that do?  Where do you go from here?  Parenting books, self-help, religious texts???  Complaining in online mothering forums.  Praying or meditating, hoping for some divine intervention.  Or waiting.  Realizing that there is nothing wrong with the picture.  It is what it is.  You are who you are, waiting for the full moon to wane.