You read the title right. It wasn't my KID that had a meltdown, it was 20 year old adult who should know better me. It was my first year as a mom and it still feels like one of my biggest parenting fails.
In the summer of 2006, we were living in Georgia and had just come home from our big Catholic wedding with hundreds of dollars in cash and Target gift cards. I could finally decorate our base housing exactly how I dreamed it should be, and just in time for little 6 month old Colton and his newly discovered sibling-to-be. Sterling was gone at 2 weeks in the field, and I wanted to surprise him with our put-together house, so I strapped my baby in his car seat and we left for the 45 minute drive into Savannah for a Target run. It was a hot and sweaty Georgia summer, but I loved the drive through the woods and into the humidity as we drifted toward the ocean.
Getting closer to town, I had already decided this would be a treat myself day. When we landed at my mommy mecca, I got a fancy Starbucks drink, planning to casually wander the aisles, not even glancing at price tags because I was flush with gift cards for whatever I wanted. Colton began to get a little fussy, but no time for that, I was treating myself! I playfully responded to him at first, laughing and baby voicing him into silent confusion for a few leisurely steps down lampshades and into picture frames. He would calm down, but always come back angrier or sadder than the last time. In retrospect, I inexplicably chose nap time to treat myself, so this was a losing venture from the start.
By the time I was heading to find some cute new maternity gear, his whining was at the point where I didn't respond, just closed my eyes, took a breath, and pretended he wasn't mine for 2 seconds. This made him madder, made people look at us, made me mortified, made me mad at him. A 6 month old. I'd have to cut my day shorter than I had dreamed and I was agitated. I was mad at Colton for purposely ruining my relaxation. I was mad at Target for not having a daycare. I was mad at myself thinking I could ever treat myself for one day. I was mad I had no one to watch my kid. I was mad.
I fumed to the checkout and tolerated his increasing volume of cries while simultaneously pretending they weren't happening. I talked to the cashier a little louder and forced a smile to pretend I was totally ok with this and absolutely choosing to ease out of treating myself to head home. She shared the same forced smile and played along with my dumb game. I spent more than I meant to, so after the gift cards were wiped, I was too embarrassed to start putting things back, so I had to split the balance between my almost maxxed out credit card and an almost overdrafted debit card. What a treat.
With Colton at full volume, she handed me my receipt and I got him tightly in his carseat, set on the handlebars of the cart that was now full of all my wonderfully expensive new things. As we teetered out the automatic door, I knew it wasn't totally safe, but we only had a short way to go. I pushed on carefully past his screaming, but miscalculated the lip of the curb that would bring me from the sidewalk to the lot. At just the wrong angle, my whole cart tipped to the right. My things fell out, the car seat did exactly what it was supposed to do and protected my son from hitting the pavement. He was so surprised that he stopped screaming, so I took over.
I cried and hyperventilated as a 50-something woman and her husband rushed over from almost walking in. He scrambled to get Colton upright and to reload my cart. She put her arm around me and told me to breathe and said in a sweet slight southern drawl, "It's ok, we all have our days, just calm down, honey." A small crowd had formed to see my insanity. My breathing slowed, I wiped my eyes, I took a breath, and ungratefully and embarrassingly told them thanks without making eye contact and rushed to my car to push all of the things I couldn't afford into my overcrowded trunk. I buckled in my still shocked silent child while I finished getting the tears out and finally drove off.
I am still not sure whether I had undiagnosed post-partum depression, or if I was just overwhelmed that, at 20, I had a new baby, new husband, new roommate, in a new state, with no friends, no family, and no idea what I was doing. This meltdown was the worst of it, but the feeling of "why won't someone just fucking help me" was constant that first year...and I DID have help! Even before the 6 month mark, Colton had spent 3 weeks in Washington with his dad's family, we got back to MN multiple times thanks to free flight benefits, and my husband and roommate were home every night to do at least a little to give me a break.
And now, a dozen years removed from carseats and crying babies, I sometimes forget how incredibly lonely new motherhood can be. Your entire world is consumed by keeping one person alive while they are completely ignorant to all of the dangers that surrounds them. They sleep wrong, they can't feed themselves, their big heads make them very tippy - it's danger EVERYWHERE! Take that omnipresent stress and add the need for them to be happy but not spoiled, to be learning but to have fun, to hit development milestones at the exact time the baby books said you should... It's a lot, Mamas.
The good news is, you got this. While one big fail changed my perspective on parents in Target to be more forgiving of bad days, a dozen years of raising those danger babies has taught me to just love and listen to them. It doesn't matter if you're a helicopter mom, free-range parent, stay-at-home, work all the time, taxiing to 20 activities a week or chilling at home with nothing. You can love and listen from any of those places.
Love means you don't have to LIKE them all the time, but you have to love them more than anyone else in the world all the time. You are their biggest advocate and cheerleader, everything you do, to include taking a break or grounding them for a week, should be because of love. I happen to like my kids, even more now that they're older, but through every age and stage, I have loved them the most.
Listening means more than just hearing their words. It's FEELING their energy and knowing their limits intuitively. It means you can put down your phone and LOOK at the thing they're making or the run-on story they're telling, but it also means paying attention to what they don't say. Colton missed a lot of early milestones, but I instinctively knew it wasn't because anything was wrong, he was just a kid who liked to do stuff on his own time and didn't care to compare himself to peers. He still is that kid. Michael was a baby who hated falling down in public - he learned to crawl, walk, potty train - mostly on his own after just observing, but preferred to practice when no one was looking. He still is that kid.
As a mom of Baby Giant teens now, I still love them and I still listen to them every day. I don't like everything they like (I literally don't like ANY YouTubers...), but I love them more than anything. And while I will always listen to their input of why they should be allowed out with his friends until midnight or don't need to clean their room, my decision is always a little bit different and always final. The dangers may have shifted from eating solid foods to staying away from drugs, but loving and listening are still there and always will be.
Getting closer to town, I had already decided this would be a treat myself day. When we landed at my mommy mecca, I got a fancy Starbucks drink, planning to casually wander the aisles, not even glancing at price tags because I was flush with gift cards for whatever I wanted. Colton began to get a little fussy, but no time for that, I was treating myself! I playfully responded to him at first, laughing and baby voicing him into silent confusion for a few leisurely steps down lampshades and into picture frames. He would calm down, but always come back angrier or sadder than the last time. In retrospect, I inexplicably chose nap time to treat myself, so this was a losing venture from the start.
By the time I was heading to find some cute new maternity gear, his whining was at the point where I didn't respond, just closed my eyes, took a breath, and pretended he wasn't mine for 2 seconds. This made him madder, made people look at us, made me mortified, made me mad at him. A 6 month old. I'd have to cut my day shorter than I had dreamed and I was agitated. I was mad at Colton for purposely ruining my relaxation. I was mad at Target for not having a daycare. I was mad at myself thinking I could ever treat myself for one day. I was mad I had no one to watch my kid. I was mad.I fumed to the checkout and tolerated his increasing volume of cries while simultaneously pretending they weren't happening. I talked to the cashier a little louder and forced a smile to pretend I was totally ok with this and absolutely choosing to ease out of treating myself to head home. She shared the same forced smile and played along with my dumb game. I spent more than I meant to, so after the gift cards were wiped, I was too embarrassed to start putting things back, so I had to split the balance between my almost maxxed out credit card and an almost overdrafted debit card. What a treat.
"WHY WON'T SOMEONE JUST FUCKING HELP ME?!?!"
I cried and hyperventilated as a 50-something woman and her husband rushed over from almost walking in. He scrambled to get Colton upright and to reload my cart. She put her arm around me and told me to breathe and said in a sweet slight southern drawl, "It's ok, we all have our days, just calm down, honey." A small crowd had formed to see my insanity. My breathing slowed, I wiped my eyes, I took a breath, and ungratefully and embarrassingly told them thanks without making eye contact and rushed to my car to push all of the things I couldn't afford into my overcrowded trunk. I buckled in my still shocked silent child while I finished getting the tears out and finally drove off.
--
I am still not sure whether I had undiagnosed post-partum depression, or if I was just overwhelmed that, at 20, I had a new baby, new husband, new roommate, in a new state, with no friends, no family, and no idea what I was doing. This meltdown was the worst of it, but the feeling of "why won't someone just fucking help me" was constant that first year...and I DID have help! Even before the 6 month mark, Colton had spent 3 weeks in Washington with his dad's family, we got back to MN multiple times thanks to free flight benefits, and my husband and roommate were home every night to do at least a little to give me a break.
And now, a dozen years removed from carseats and crying babies, I sometimes forget how incredibly lonely new motherhood can be. Your entire world is consumed by keeping one person alive while they are completely ignorant to all of the dangers that surrounds them. They sleep wrong, they can't feed themselves, their big heads make them very tippy - it's danger EVERYWHERE! Take that omnipresent stress and add the need for them to be happy but not spoiled, to be learning but to have fun, to hit development milestones at the exact time the baby books said you should... It's a lot, Mamas.
The good news is, you got this. While one big fail changed my perspective on parents in Target to be more forgiving of bad days, a dozen years of raising those danger babies has taught me to just love and listen to them. It doesn't matter if you're a helicopter mom, free-range parent, stay-at-home, work all the time, taxiing to 20 activities a week or chilling at home with nothing. You can love and listen from any of those places.
Love means you don't have to LIKE them all the time, but you have to love them more than anyone else in the world all the time. You are their biggest advocate and cheerleader, everything you do, to include taking a break or grounding them for a week, should be because of love. I happen to like my kids, even more now that they're older, but through every age and stage, I have loved them the most.
Listening means more than just hearing their words. It's FEELING their energy and knowing their limits intuitively. It means you can put down your phone and LOOK at the thing they're making or the run-on story they're telling, but it also means paying attention to what they don't say. Colton missed a lot of early milestones, but I instinctively knew it wasn't because anything was wrong, he was just a kid who liked to do stuff on his own time and didn't care to compare himself to peers. He still is that kid. Michael was a baby who hated falling down in public - he learned to crawl, walk, potty train - mostly on his own after just observing, but preferred to practice when no one was looking. He still is that kid.
As a mom of Baby Giant teens now, I still love them and I still listen to them every day. I don't like everything they like (I literally don't like ANY YouTubers...), but I love them more than anything. And while I will always listen to their input of why they should be allowed out with his friends until midnight or don't need to clean their room, my decision is always a little bit different and always final. The dangers may have shifted from eating solid foods to staying away from drugs, but loving and listening are still there and always will be.
If I remember correctly, it was a post-Target meltdown that prompted me to put an ad on Craigslist looking for someone to help me survive parenthood....that led me to you! Those hours you spent with my kids saved my sanity.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s funny to me is that people did offer to help...but I didn’t think they meant it, or I didn’t know them well enough to trust them; yet I trusted someone who responded to a Craigslist ad! I was seriously lucky that it was you!
BTW—If this is in your top 5 parenting fails, you’re doing great (and you are!)