savagemama

Sometimes as a parent you have moments of clarity, moments of light. I’ve come to be thankful for these and take them at face value for the tiny miracles that they are. I had one such moment this week. I’m not even sure I could pinpoint the exact time this gift landed in my lap but I know it did.

For months I’ve been struggling and waffling. At times I’ve been wallowing and projecting my angst onto my husband who tells me quickly that I’m doing so but also onto my oldest child who has no words for such shenanigans yet. I’ve told Seth he’s the one in a bad mood, he’s grumpy, he needs to take a walk.

“Babe, I’m fine,” he says. “I think you’re the one who needs a walk.”

And by the time I stomp ten steps through the snow down our long driveway, I know he’s right.
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Yesterday Lucille bounded through the house.

“It really pisses me off,” she said. “But I love you anyway!”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard her correctly so I asked her what she’d said.

“It really pisses me off,” she said. “But I love you anyway!” She threw her head back with laughter.

“Babe, we can’t say that word,” I said trying to squelch my own laughter.
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Well, I’m sitting here feeling like a pretty crappy mama. We missed Eliza’s class holiday performance tonight. We didn’t miss it because we chose not to go. We missed it because we were late and her class performed without her.

As we crossed the courtyard to her school 10 minutes after the program started we saw her teacher walking out of the gym where the program was in full swing.

“Oh,” she said looking a little disappointed. “We just finished their song.”

I nearly started crying. We were too late.

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Sunday morning I was talking to the wifey on the phone. I was still in my jammies, Seth in his bathrobe. Wifey and I were planning where we’d all go later that day to cut down a Christmas tree. My coffee was hot and we’d barely been on the phone three minutes before, of course, talk shifted from trees, temperature and motivation to what we’d done the day before. Seems the wifey had four girls with her that Saturday and they walked through downtown before Missoula’s annual Christmas parade taking part in the downtown-wide Christmas festivities.
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