I am proud of myself.  I am proud of her.  I am proud of our family.  I think we’re doing OK.

But today I am feeling glum and dejected for no reason.  I am getting my period.  So I am reminding myself.  We are a pretty happy family.  We are a lucky family.  We love each other.  We are trying.

We are not perfect.

We don’t need to be.

We’re OK just as we are, and it doesn’t matter if others do not agree.  I am happy to listen to anyone’s criticism to see if there is a way that I may improve.  But that doesn’t mean I will change anything.

And that’s OK too.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember.

I had a very painful experience with my mother this week. Years of anger and resentment, hurt over slights real or perceived, built up into one angry crescendo of ultimatums, screaming, lecturing, swearing, and threatening. I reached my breaking point. On Tuesday, my husband and I realized that we could never meet her demands. She was being unreasonable, she wanted explanations, apologies, begging – she wanted a lot of things we couldn’t give her. The details don’t matter much – the bottom line for all of this was communication. We didn’t communicate with her. She didn’t communicate with us. When we did “communicate” we just talked at each other, no one really heard anyone else. We had misunderstandings. My husband and I failed to fulfill part of our bargain and it doesn’t matter that she made it impossible – I mean, it does matter, that’s the why of our failure, but to her it doesn’t matter because she didn’t see herself as being impossible, and the bottom line was that we didn’t manage to keep up our end of the childcare deal.

It’s funny how our emotions can cloud our perceptions of ourselves.

On Tuesday my husband and I decided we needed to take the kids out of her care during the day. Cupcake was picking up on the tension, the anger, the resentment. When my mother and I fight in the morning, she acts up the rest of the day, in the evening when I bring her home. She hits and yells and won’t listen. She says “Grandma doesn’t love you” and “Grandma doesn’t want you” to me.

I can’t quite explain how that statement broke my heart. Not because of what she said – I already knew these things. I’ve known them for a long time. It broke my heart that she recognized it in the hateful words, the angry tone, the shouting. I don’t want her to know that a mother could feel that way about a child. I don’t want her to believe that is what a healthy mother-daughter relationship looks like.  The worst part is that I can see myself in her. Not as she is with my kids; it’s amazing how much patience she has with them. No, I see a reflection, however faint, of our current relationship in th way that I sometimes handle my children.  I sometimes yell when I should whisper. I let my irritation at the world spill through into my interactions with them. Yes, some of this is human. I think some of it is influenced by daily reinforcement, in my life, of my own unique and unhealthy, daughter/mother relationship.

When my mother confronted me at the end of the day on Tuesday, demanding and threatening, I tried to let it wash over me. I tried to forget the last 8 hours I’d spend agonizing over our decision, alternately crying at my desk at work and going to the bathroom to see if I could throw up. I summoned my nerve and said it: We’re putting the kids in daycare.

It’s funny how just a few words can change everything.

Her entire expression changed. She went from yelling You cunt! to a stunned, shocked, hurt expression. Panic crossed her face, then came back to stay as she realized I was serious, so serious. Suddenly, she became reasonable. Suddenly, she was apologizing. Suddenly, she admitted that she was being impossible on purpose – in everything – because she felt slighted, used, hurt, taken advantage of.

Suddenly, we were communicating, calmly, like adults. Expressing our frustrations and fears.

We spent another hour or so talking that evening, after I discussed the turn of events with DaddyGeek. We talked Pros and Cons, we made lists. We knew that if we could eliminate the stress of our own personal interactions with my mother, and keep them from affecting the kids when they did arise, that in my mother’s care was the best place for Cupcake and Geeklet until school. They are learning so much, She loves them so much. With them, she is patient and kind and understanding, she is creative and she teaches them. She puts a smile on her face for them.

I think it’s safe to say that I am quite often jealous of my children and the relationship that they have with my mother. It used to be that I wanted to have the bond with my own children that she seemed to have. She helped me realize what I was doing wrong – I fixed it, and I don’t feel that’s lacking anymore. No, now I am jealous of their relationship with her because I want to be in their shoes. I want her unconditional patience and love again.

We are trying again with a clean(er) slate (No one ever gets a really clean slate again, no matter what they say). We are setting some ground rules for communication, and I am cautiously optimistic that this will solve our biggest problems. I am cautiously optimistic that once we solve those problems, my mother and I will have a chance at a relationship again. I am cautiously optimistic that if she is willing to admit her own part in the destruction of our relationship, which up until the other day she vehemently refused to admit (and she hasn’t admitted much, but it’s a start) that we can repair, renew, rejuvenate.

OH HAI, that was depressing. GRATUITOUS BABY PICTURES!

Bullshit that just because you’ve managed to keep from killing yourself or getting murdered in this life longer than I have meaning you deserve my respect.

Bullshit on “Mother Knows Best”

Bullshit that “One ‘oh shit!’ wipes out a thousand ‘atta boys!’ ”

Bullshit that I should be able to “just stop doing it” <— whatever IT is, stopping it will take work. Nothing happens in an instant.

Bullshit that just because she managed to do A, B, and C “without any help from your father”, I should be able to do the same or more.

Bullshit that getting her own errands done with three kids on the weekend is the same as me getting my errands AND her errands done on the weekend with two kids is the same.

Bullshit that I’m chemically imbalanced. I’ve seen a therapist. Have you? Because majority belief is that you’re the unbalanced one.

Bullshit that I don’t respect you, even if you don’t deserve it. I do respect you.

Bullshit that I don’t do anything for you. I stop at the store a minimum of twice a day for you to get you what you need. I try to help you run errands on the weekend. My husband has put a tarp on your broken roof three times. We have tried to fix your car. We have tried to fix your computer. We have tried to fix your everything. There’s a lot we don’t get to. There’s  lot more we could do in your opinion. We’re trying.

Bullshit that I don’t care about you. I wouldn’t be putting up with this shit anymore if I didn’t. I would have walked away.

Bullshit on the concept that I am supposed to be hurt or surprised or angry or anything when you state that you are going to eventually kill yourself. You’ve been saying it since I was 16. It’s a fact. I know it’s going to happen. I just hope you take pills instead of shooting or hanging yourself so I can tell the kids you died in your sleep without lying to them.

I was on the phone with my mother at the time. Have you ever tried to teach your child something or, worse, discipline your child while on the phone with your mother? Is it nervewracking and terrifying for you too?

I tried to explain to Cupcake (three and a half yrs old) that water and electricity can hurt her and she shouldn’t try to wash the table. I knew I wasn’t getting through to her and she ran away from me a few times too, which left me calling too sharply to get her back in the room.

I was actually glad when my mom talked to her and explained that if she wants to help clean she should use a dry cloth instead and that mommy will give her water when it is safe.

When I got back on the phone I started to thank her for her help but all she said was “I would have run away from you, too. That was horrible.”

Note to self: in 30yrs, when I disagree with my daughter’s parenting style, that sentence is the least likely way to get her in a mental state that will be appreciative and accepting of my wisdom.

I was thinking about this around 5am this morning. I woke up when Cupcake called for me. She was scared. I told her she had no reason to be scared  – Mommy and Daddy are right there in the house with her. We can hear her, and when she calls us, we come to her, see? No reason to be scared, baby. No reason to cry. Hush, hush, back to sleep.

She went back to sleep. She just needed to hear she was safe. She trusts that when I say it’s safe, it is.

I went back to sleep and the thought drifted into my head that I don’t want her to fear me – to fear that I won’t follow through, that I won’t be there, that I won’t love her enough. I don’t want my children to fear me, but then again, I do. A little.

I want them to be afraid that I’ll be disappointed in them, because I hope it will keep them from doing disappointing things. I want them to be afraid of my consequences, because I want them to stay safe and healthy and follow the rules. Right now, I want them to just stay in the damn corner when I give a time-out for hitting because god-dammit it’s not effective if you keep running off.

Yesterday, Cupcake deliberately hit Geeklet after we had just spoken about how hitting is not OK, it’s naughty, it hurts Geeklet and Geeklet will cry, and we don’t want to make her sad because we love her! So no hitting. Then she balled up her little toddler fist, looked at me and hit her.

I gave her a time-out. Or, I tried. She kept running around, and I tried to take a page from Super Nanny’s book and just silently, sternly, firmly place her back in the corner until she understood that yes, I would do this all damn day.

Then my mother called. And I didn’t want her to hear that I was giving Cupcake a time out. I didn’t want her to question my methods or my disciplinary action, or accuse me of being too harsh. She disagrees with time out – and I truly don’t understand – and whenever Cupcake mentions that being naughty gets a time out, I get a lecture or snide comment about how we are obviously putting her in time out all the time. No, only when she is violent. Violence is not tolerated. Violence gets you a time out. End of story.

Somehow, my mother still disagrees. She seems to believe that Cupcake can’t make the connection between time out and what she did. That’s where she’s wrong. Cupcake totally gets it. That’s why she TELLS my mother about it! “Nana, I hit Geeklet and I was naughty and I got a time out and then I couldn’t play with my dollies.” Yeah, she gets it.

I was afraid of being judged by her and I let the time out slide. I let Cupcake walk off, without another word, and I failed her, because all I did was reinforce that yeah, if you run away from time out you’ll get away with it, so go ahead! Hitting is obviously not so bad!

I think part of the reason my mother disagrees with Time Out is because she thinks that you can raise children with only love. I disagree. You need to have a little bit of fear. Some fear of what Mommy and Daddy think. Fear of what they’ll revoke or what they’ll lecture you about. You need some fear. It’s not enough to love them and tell them about how some behavior is naughty. Yes, it’s preferable to have logical consequences but sometimes? The only logical consequence IS a time out. In my book, time out is a logical consequence to violence. If you are going to be violent then you are not going to be near people. Corner it is, my dear. I love you, I always love you, but you cannot hit anyone. I love them too. I can’t love them and you and let you hurt them.

I need to get over this fear of her judgment. I need to learn to trust that I know what’s best for her. I need to remember that yes, my mother spends her entire day with Cupcake every day and yes, she knows her very well. But I have to trust that I know my daughter too. I have to push aside feelings of inadequacy simply because I spend less time with her during the day. I need to remember that she is my daughter, not someone I babysit all evening through the morning. I have to stop worrying that I’m not a good enough mother because I don’t spend my day with her. I have to stop worrying that I don’t know them well enough. I have to trust myself.

Anyone know how to do that?

Across the room, she catches her husband’s eye. He’s grinning a la Cheshire Cat and raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh stop it. This-” she gestures along her body with her hand, an otherwise alluring gesture were it not for her words, “isn’t attractive anymore.”

He doesn’t say a word, just continues to smile and stare. She reaches into the laundry basket, searching for a simple, unembellished black top to go with the comfortable gray pants.  She almost doesn’t notice him sidle up behind her. He wraps his arms around her and hugs, rocking back and forth again to make his point.

As he walks away she smiles a little and says “Six years ago you wouldn’t have found this attractive.”

He still hasn’t said a word, but now she dresses with a quiet confidence.

There is too much responsibility here, right now.

I think I’ve taken on too much.

I just need a few minutes, a few minutes to myself, to think quietly.

I’m afraid of what I’ll think during those minutes, though. I’m afraid of what decisions might be made.

So I keep busy.

I’ll think about it later, I’ll mull it over tomorrow.

I just need a little more time.

She needs more time.

We need more time.

We need clarity.

We need luck.

We need hope.

We just have to keep on going. If we stop we might fall apart here, and it will be the end of everything we know.

And now onto the random!

• I had to stop receiving the Urban Dictionary’s word of the day email a few months back because they introduced me to a two-word phrase that I wish I’d never, ever heard. I can’t even type it here. I had to go take a snapshot of the definition, because if someone finds my blog by searching this phrase, I will cry and curl up into a corner. Do you see that disgusting phrase? Even worse is the example of it in a sentence. ::shudder:: And the worst part is that I totally used to do that, but for some reason calling it that makes me want to curl up and die a little, and I don’t know why. It just doesn’t sit well with me. So now I can’t blow my nose in the shower anymore.  Soon I bet they’ll ruin peeing in the shower and sex in the shower. (Oh you know you do it.)
• Low carb diets can suck my butt. (But I totally admire @Messponential for sticking to hers)
• I sort of regret undressing my website and revealing the geek beneath to everyone (i.e. designing on the live production site) but ah well. I’ll have to make time. It’s nicer to reveal a shiny new site, but I just don’t have the time damnit. Or something. OK that’s not a good excuse. I’m just a failure. {lol}
• Someone on Twitter a few weeks ago ranted about how it’s spelled “dammit” and not “damnit” and now I’m self conscious about using either.  Note: Spell check agrees that “dammit” is the right spelling.  Food for thought, people. You’ll get nothing but quality here.
• It has come to my attention in the last weeks that I am pretty oblivious to most of the drama that happens online. I’ve decided I like it that way

Kid Updates, because this is supposedly a “mommy blog” though you wouldn’t know it to read some of my more recent posts. Ahem. Can we spell “risqu é

• Geeklet has started walking, crawling, etc. Yay! She’s walking! However, she has not stopped crying all fucking day every day. The pediatrician doesn’t see anything wrong, is defaulting to the “teething” diagnosis. I’m not even home with her and it makes the days hard – just hearing about it and knowing that my mother is going through the constant screaming, plus it’s causing issues with Cupcake – she wants more attention but it’s hard to accomodate that with a screaming baby in your ear. Except she’s not quite a baby anymore, she’s turning into a toddler, but still screaming.
• It’s not all bad news, Geeklet also has started to say a few words (!!!). While she refuses to say Mama, we’ve definitely heard Dada, some variation on Thank You, “AGAH!” which means “Again!” and something that sounded like Cupcake’s name.  Thus it begins.
• Cupcake is doing well overall but we are having some trouble with regressing (note: she has super annoying younger sister, did I mention that already?!) and some more trouble at bedtime. She vomited once because she was sick, maybe also because she was sick the second time (a few days later). Now she’s scared of it. My mother is convinced that she is scared of us – meaning myself and DaddyGeek – because she said something about throwing up, yelling and being scared. Right. So obviously we’re screaming at her before bed and she’s throwing up because she’s upset. She couldn’t be wrong or anything. She’s three. She can’t be confused, or not clear in her words. Right? RIGHT?! But my mother has a tendency to assume it’s us ruining Cupcake’s life by default. We’re obviously fucking her up beyond anything in the history of stuff that has ever been fucked up.  < /sarcasm>

Other Updates

• DaddyGeek’s birthday was at the end of last week. He is awesome, and though I didn’t write a birthday post, or get him a card, or even manage to make him coffee in the morning, he knows that his gift is coming*.
• There are a lot of geeky delicious things happening lately, including Google Wave, dipping my feet into complete website design, new Android stuff to dig through as well as Windows 7 – my new favorite Windows platform – and the up-and-coming Windows Mobile 7 which sounds freaking amazing. Definitely an iPhone / Android competitor, in my geeky opinion.

So. What are you doing this week? I want to hear allll about it.

* That’s a play on words. Did you catch it?

• It took forever to get into the city yesterday for the ultrasound appointment, and then the GYN. When we finally arrived at 2:20 for our 1:30pm appointment at the ultrasound place, we were told that her appointment was actually at 3pm. Which made no sense, because her appointment with the GYN was at 3pm, and the GYN made this ultrasound appointment for us. Whatever. I left like 3 messages with “Jeannie” the receptionist but apparently she’s not fit to do her job because she didn’t bother to call me back and reassure us that we’d still have our appointment.
• The ultrasound was clear!
• Off we went to the GYN, where I waited in the waiting room for over an hour while she was in with the doctor, jumping everytime a nurse or a patient came through the door because I was waiting for her to come out. Luckily I had some awesome tweets and emails coming my way, which made it a lot easier to take. I also read the latest issue of Time cover to cover, which I have never done, so I’m feeling very up to date on current events. I feel smartish. I might subscribe.
• Ok, the subscription was $20 but I did it anyway because I sort of liked feeling smartish. And I’m terrible about watching the news, so this might help me a bit. We’ll see if I cancel.
  
• She finally got out of the appointment, and it turns out they couldn’t get the sample for the biopsy. The doctor stopped because after three numbing shots and Mom taking her pain medication, she was still in agony and she couldn’t “torture” her anymore.  It makes me sick to think of how much that procedure hurts normally, times about a hundred because of the severity of her illness*.
  
• So, we are going back at the end of November. To do it again. I feel horrible, because she has to go through the entire ordeal again, PLUS all the waiting time. The doctor did say that she was fairly confident everything is fine, but that she wanted to be absolutely sure considering my mother’s symptoms.
  
• Next, we go deal with a patch of skin cancer on her leg. Or, what is almost definitely skin cancer, her doctor said.  When it rains it pours, right?

* I won’t name the illness here because I don’t want her to find this blog.  I’m paranoid about it. Very. very. very. paranoid.

All this to wait, wait wait, wait wait wait wait wait…. and then hopefully, we’ll hear “No.It’s not cancerous” Not that it ends there. Then we go see a dermatologist. Because the spot on her leg most likely is cancer.

I know that I’ve posted about my problems with her. We have our troubles. We have our good times too. No matter what she is still my mother. I’m terrified.