It's been a rough few weeks. I've been stressed out, and, as Meanie mentioned this weekend, I don't seem like myself. That gorgeous chick is absolutely right: I am not as much the bubbly wonder that is The Maven these days. There's more of a raw quality to me right now. A darker quality. It's kind of badass, really. Like some punk chick with a mohawk.

I've been juggling several stressful things over the holidays and beyond. Some of them have resolved, some will take more time. We finally signed the papers for our re-mortgage, which has greatly reduced worries over paying the bills. Our plumbing issues were fixed without the use of a plumber (we were really strapped for cash after Christmas, like most people), even though it took a week to track down the problem, and I had to help my husband take apart and unclog a waste pipe in the basement. Major barf-o-rama. I will never complain about how much plumbers cost again. That being said, I felt incredibly proud of myself for doing that. Almost goddess-like, even. A stinky goddess who smells like she just had an orgy with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in their sewer den of love, but a goddess nonetheless.

Whatever stress remains is just stuff I'm still dealing with periodically from my past - because there's a lot in my past that I have yet to work through. It sounds so new age, doesn't it? Like I'm taking the hand of my inner child and guiding her gently down the road of love, or some other thing that makes me want to gag.

But here's the thing: it's imperative I do this touchy-feely crap. If I don't, I won't stay sober. I haven't touched a mood-altering substance* for over eighteen years. There's a reason I became a full-blown addict at the age of fourteen; that's not exactly a common time in one's life to be needing a treatment center. Maintaining my sobriety requires a peeling back of the layers every now and then. Right now, the layers are peeled all the way back and I'm dumping a whole bunch of antibiotics in there to clean the wound. It's an ongoing process - sometimes it takes a lot of treatment, sometimes only a little. I had to hijack the proverbial medical supply truck for this one.

Proverbial. That means I didn't actually hijack anything. Please don't call the feds. I don't like the idea of jail. I may act tough, but I would totally end up being someone's bitch in there.

Is there a proverb involving a medical truck? Well, whatever. It's Monday morning, I've had half a coffee, and I'm blogging for the first time in two weeks. Cut me some slack, ok?

But there's a bigger reason why I need to do this ugly feeling stuff. Three far more important reasons than anything else I can think of: Intrepid, Gutsy, and Spawnling.


One day last week, Gutsy was in a real mood, and so was I. The two of us combined our anger in the kitchen, and conjured up a perfect storm of conflict. It was epic. When he yelled, it was hoarse, and he banged his fists. When I yelled, I went up an octave, my face felt hot and I jumped up and down on the spot, like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

I yelled so loudly I shocked even myself. It wasn't just a mom yell - goodness knows I'm mastered the art of that - but it was rageful, like a volcano erupting. I stopped, abruptly, and looked Gutsy. He stared at me, terrified, not daring to move.

I ran over to him and said "Oh, Gutsy. I'm so sorry. I can't believe I just yelled like that. I'm having a really bad day, buddy, and I'm taking my stress out on you. I'm your mom; I should never do that to you." And he cried because I had scared him so much, and I cried because that was so wrong of me, and held him tight. For, it seemed to me that I could do nothing worse in the world than take out my own problems on an innocent little boy.

I felt like absolute garbage for the rest of the day. I still feel really bad. My stress is mine, and not something my children should feel the brunt of.

My biggest fear, beyond anything else in the world, is doing a bad job at this parenting thing.

I know I'm not perfect, and I'm not going to do a perfect job. I'm going to make a lot of mistakes and I'm going to have to apologize a fair bit. And there are days when I realize half an hour before school that someone doesn't have a clean shirt, or we're out of bread for lunch-making. There are days when the gremlins eat a stupendously unhealthy meal of tofu nuggets and fries in front of a Sponge-Bob episode. And on some weekends, the boys stay in pajamas all day while their friends are out snowshoeing the trails at 8AM with their motivated parents.

Have I mentioned I'm not perfect?

In short, it's been a very long year, and, at risk of sounding like I have a reservation at Pity Party Pizza Palace, table for one, the hits just sort of kept coming for a good length of time. But that's no excuse for yelling at Gutsy like that. I need to pick myself up, dust myself off, deal with my shit, and do my part to raise a confident boy who knows he's loved and safe in his home. I owe he and his brothers that, as their mom.

After school, the middle gremlin and I are going to work on a french presentation due tomorrow. He needs to explain how to make his favourite recipe to his class, complete with yummy samples. We need to make about thirty cupcakes, and take some pictures, and put them on a poster, and make sure he remembers the words for everything... This should be a good test of my ability to cope with stress.


So that's where I'm at these days, although I'm getting better all the time. I have a feeling that I'll be back to my regular state of awesome in no time.

I would write more, but I have a playdate to take my rather demanding Monday morning Spawnling to. In an attempt to distract me, he's pretending to make his stuffed cat poo on my bed. How lovely.



*I would like to point out that caffeine is a mood-altering drug that is frequently used by yours truly.