i was mean to my girls this morning.
and the show went down for all to see at the woodstock library.
it made me sick and feel like a low-life, but i was so angry and hormonal and freaky.
i couldn't stop, despite the audible pleading with the One who can clear these things up: "God, please help me be good to them. I need your help right now. Right now. Hurry up or it's gonna get bad."
it doesn't happen very often, thank God, because i am married to an amazing man who is a full partner with me in loving our girls. i would be a tragic single mom.
but today i was the twin one of those women you see at grocery stores or banks or other bad mom spots, where bad moms hang out and yell at their kids. bad moms who are exhausted but have to buy something to feed the noise. bad moms whose gut and thighs are bigger than their husband's and who can't do anything but have fried, split-ends and brown-coffee teeth. those people you shake your head at and want to deprive of the very air they are stealing from all of the good people in the room, like yourself.
even the librarian lowered her voice and asked me if i needed help with anything, and i could tell she meant "help" in more than a "can i help you find barney's best pals go to the bouncy castle?" kind of a way.
she packed my back pack for me upon checking out mozea's books and wished me well before she sent me out the door.
then things really got nuts.
i couldn't find the key to the van. ruah was screaming and pulling my hair. mozie was screaming and pulling ruah's hair. both of them were falling out of my arms and mozea's baby doll stroller was about to get thrown across the street and into the library parking lot if it didn't cooperate and stop falling out of my pinkie finger grasp.
we were a tumult. a writhing psycho circus with a giant bad mom clown fueling the craziness for the entire show, curtains and all.
i broke into our van and put the girls in their seats and then proceeded to bawl while i yelled at mozea that i was crying because i couldn't find the keys and what were we going to do now?! we have no other key! this is a volkswagen--you get your spare key from a shop in europe for $100 dollars! one-hundred-dollars!
while i went on with my bawling soliloquy, i got on all fours and started climbing under the van, looking under the tires, desperately hoping that God would show up and do something for this insane woman who didn't deserve anything but to be put in a very long time-out.
and then it came.
"mama, the keys in da napkim."
"mama, the napkim. the napkim."
mozea's little voice tried to bellow over my tragic hormonal state.
i felt a nudge to be quiet and listen, and so i listened to the only thing i could hear--mozea.
she had put the key in the wipes container and shut the lid to make a shaker, and then threw it to the outer reaches of the van's interior.
she was telling me she put the keys in with the napkins, and
there is no way i would have ever found it.
never.
we would have gotten second jobs to pay for the new key before that van would've moved from woodstock library.
i climbed up next to mozea, hugged her, sobbing, and asked her to forgive me.
i loved her, i loved her, i loved her.
"ok. it's ok. mama? upset?"
i just sobbed and mozea and ruah laughed and laughed, thinking it was just a funny face i was making to end the show, to draw the curtain on the circus from hell that had been our morning.
when i got into the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition i asked mozie to pray for me, because, as she could see, mama was having a very hard day.
"yeah. ok....pray God for mama...for van key...not upset. van key in da napkim."
what grace.
who deserves this immediate forgiveness and re-admittance into the good mom seats?
who deserves this from their child? their baby?
not me.
