The Butterfly Effect

Today, I'm exhausted.

My day started at 5:30 this morning when my five year old son decided to creep up the stairs from his bedroom and turn on the living room television. Unfortunately, I was asleep on the couch, having fallen asleep there mid-work last night.

"Go back to bed, dude. Or at least to your room. It's not time to be up yet."

"But I don't want to."

"I know you don't, but let's be considerate of the other people who live in this house whom you are waking up, okay?"

This was met with a screamed "I HATE YOU!" as he fled back down to his bedroom, slamming his door shut and wailing as loud as he could. This, of course, woke my seven and two year olds up.

Now, I know what you're going to tell me. "Was it really THAT big a deal that he was in the living room? Why not just let him watch the TV?"

In every family, we have to decide what and what is not a big deal to us. Then we have to decide what "little things" we will let slide, and which ones we will not. My boys have the tendency to get into things they should not when they know they are not being watched, or if they just THINK they're not being watched. They also each have their own TVs in their rooms. Now, they can't watch cable in there — just movies. But they each have their own small movie collections to choose from in their rooms. He would have been fine in his own room until the alarms went off in an hour or so.

Instead, he chose to come to the living room, which he knows is against the rules. Our rule is, "If the sun is down, you should be too."

At 5:30 in the morning, no sign of the sun was in sight, and he knew it.

So now I had a very tired, very cranky two year old on my hands. I also had a very anxious seven year old, who is autistic with ODD and ADHD among various physical medical issues. My two year old decided to display his displeasure at being awakened so early and so rudely by chasing our two cats around, pulling their tails, and throwing whatever he could get his hands on.

My seven year old rocked back and forth on the kitchen stairs, pulling at his hair and the skin of his neck. I knew just looking at him that this was not going to be a fun day.

School starts at 8:45 here, and the school is quite literally in our backyard. This means my boys have plenty of time to get up, eat, and prepare for school, with time left to spare for a TV show or playtime.

Unless we have a day like this.

On days like this, I spend hours convincing my oldest that he does, indeed, know where his shoes are. Yes, you do have to wear pants to school. No, you can't wear your pajamas to school. Yes, I know pajama pants are still pants but they are NOT acceptable school attire, except on pajama day. No, today is not pajama day.

While I battle my oldest son on his attire, his eating habits, and please for the love of all things holy, STOP PULLING AT YOUR NECK, I also have to convince my five year old to stop his wailing and get ready to go.

My five year old is a difficult child to calm once riled.

Once I succeed in getting him calmed, he gets himself dressed, but then there's the breakfast fight. With both of them.

Yes, you're going to eat the cereal I gave you. No, you can't have crackers instead. Because crackers aren't breakfast food. The baby is eating crackers because I've been spending twenty minutes trying to get your oldest brother to put his pants back on and you got the crackers out. No, you can't have them too. See, I'm taking them away from him.

Then follows the "Let's go, you're going to be late!" routine. How ridiculous that my children might ever be late...the school is seriously right behind us. It takes all of three or four minutes to get to the office door from our house.

This routine usually includes, "No those shoes aren't on the right feet," "What do you mean you can't find your shoes? They're in the shoe drawer!" "Yo! You still need your backpack," and various other platitudes that all parents can relate to in some way or another.

Then out the door to the trail for school we go, where my children shove each other and race each other and "But Mom! He cheated!"

Finally the older two boys are at school and I'm left with my tyrannical two year old, who is still cranky from being up at 5:30 this morning.

So he throws more things, and he bites the cat, and screams, and cries, and slams his door open and closed so hard, he knocks a hole through the wall with the doorknob.

And the school calls. And of course my oldest son is an absolute disaster today.

He's leaving the classroom without telling the teacher because, "Well, I didn't know I had to."

But he does. He knows.

He's refusing to participate in group work, then crying because, "No one wants to work with me." He's staring into space because the work doesn't interest him, but then his work isn't finished and now he's angry because he's going to get an F on his work again.

So here I sit, at quarter to one in the afternoon, having myself a good cry and a LARGE piece of chocolate cake (because cake makes a good lunch for people who missed breakfast and who cares that I don't even like chocolate?), while my two year old finally naps and my seven year old begrudgingly returns to class where he should be.

And my five year old son, whose temper tantrum this morning started the whole thing, is having a fantastic day, unaware of the ripple effect his early morning antics created for the rest of us.

So many people tell moms to just "be grateful" we have the opportunity to be moms at all. Be glad our kids are here. Be happy we got to argue with them, because some never get that chance.

You can take those platitudes and shove them where the sun doesn't shine, thanks very much.

Because today, I don't want to mom for a little bit.

I want to shove chocolate cake in my mouth, feel like a fat person, and pretend, for five minutes, that I don't want to rip my hair out and that I don't feel like a total failure.

And damn it, it's okay for me and every other mom on the planet to have these days.