I want you to want me
I need you to need me

Except when I really don’t. Except when it’s pretty much the exact opposite.

I hate to hate my child.

But sometimes I do. When he’s bratty and whiny and asks a million questions. Especially repeatedly asking me about Star Wars. And like the tough shit, where an honest answer would require discussions on death.

Today is that day. It’s been Spring Break and we’ve traveled. Basically I’ve been locked up with him for a week.

And I’m done.

Done with the tantrums. Done with the illogic. “Don’t cut my pancakes. Put it back together!!” “I can’t eat my pancake, it’s too big.”

I want to scream.

And as often as I like his cuddles, I feel super over touched right now. Super at my wits end. Super like I might throw him against the wall.

And I hate to hate my child. I feel like a terrible mother and all those articles that tell me to cherish these days when he wants to snuggle because someday he will be sixteen and push me away, don’t help. I just feel extra guilty.

Or I don’t. At this moment, I am beyond guilt. I am so enraged and fed up that I have somehow conquered the fear I had about writing again after a week off and have picked up the old Chromebook and am madly writing away on my porch. Dreading that at any minute he and the papa unit will be coming around the bend and I will have to be mom again.

Is becoming a mother the worst thing I have ever done? Because part of me just keeps yearning for the days when it will be normal again. And that is just never going to happen.

Part of me thinks I am too selfish and fucked up to parent somebody else. I can’t even parent myself. I can’t calm myself down. I can’t let go of this anger. I can’t stop feeling like I just need some goddamn time to myself.

I remember when the hubby and I were dating, not yet engaged, and he asked me during one of my own tantrums how I would ever be a mother to someone else. How would I take care of another being when I was such a hot mess myself, basically. And I said something along the lines of I guess I’d have to grow up.

And he admitted later that his private response was, get this girl pregnant STAT because he was so tired of dealing with my emotions.

So perhaps my overly emotional child is just karma. I get to see what’s it’s like to try to take care of someone, tend to the feelings of someone, who just doesn’t want to feel better. Who doesn’t make any sense.

I would’ve dumped my ass.

Or perhaps not. Because love is funny and I will sit here and hate my child, but still give him a hug and snuggle him to sleep at naptime. And it will all pass. Maybe not today. But it will.

In the meantime, I’m going to try not to punch the little bugger.

And here he is…

He wiped his nose on my knee.