High Maintenance Mama

I'm going to be honest with you today, because that's the whole point of this space. I'm going through a miscarriage. Alone. It was chemical, which is the word they use when it ends early, and I know some people would say that means it doesn't count. It counts. It hurts the same. The loss feels immense, and right now it's hard to feel anything else.

Today I have two dentist appointments, back to back. One kid at 2:30, the next one at 3:30, and me parked in the waiting room in between, trying to look like a woman who has her life together. I do not. I have a purse full of snack wrappers and a coffee that went cold somewhere around noon, but I am sitting up straight, so nobody can prove anything.

Here is a tool I want you to steal from me, because it works. It is called name it to tame it. When a big feeling shows up — the anger, the overwhelm, the guilt, the sadness that comes out of nowhere on a Tuesday — you name it out loud. 'I am overwhelmed.' 'I am angry.' 'I am sad and I do not know why yet.'

Monday morning in my house has a sound. It's not an alarm clock. It's the sound of six lunchboxes hitting the kitchen counter like a drumline, right when I'm still half asleep and holding my coffee like it's a life raft.

Here is a question I want you to sit with for a second. When was the last time you asked for help before you were already falling apart?

Sunday night in my house has a ritual, and the ritual is a lie. Every Sunday I stand in the living room, look at the toy explosion, and say the words: "Okay. We are tidying up before the week starts." I say it with confidence. I say it like a woman with a plan. And then I step on a LEGO brick barefoot and the plan dies right there on the carpet.

If you are a mom who says yes to everything, I have a question for you. When was the last time you said yes and actually meant it?

Saturday mornings in my house do not start with an alarm clock. They start with six kids stampeding down the stairs at 6 a.m. like somebody rang a dinner bell, announcing that they are STARVING, as if I have not fed them every single day of their lives.

If the idea of journaling makes you roll your eyes, I get it. Who has time to sit down and write their feelings for twenty minutes? I have six kids. I barely have time to finish a thought, never mind write one down.

There is a war happening in my kitchen, and it is not about the food. It is about the dishwasher. And I am losing it to people who are under four feet tall.

Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned that rest is something you earn. Finish the laundry, answer the emails, clean the kitchen, survive the day — then, maybe, you get to sit down.

Bedtime in this house is 8:30. That is the rule. The kids know it, I know it, the dog knows it. And yet, every single night at 8:27, somebody suddenly discovers they are starving.