Ever have one of those days?

You know, days where you wonder what the hell you were thinking when you decided being a parent was a good idea. One of those days where the cat pees on the floor and walks in circles crying for hours on end. One of those days where, even though it’s not a super full load, the washer bangs and clangs and threatens to overflow. I’m having one of those days today, and right now I want nothing more than to just go back to bed, rewind time and start again.

BB and I got into a thing today. He was throwing a tantrum and then threw a box of tissue at my face. The corner hit my cheek bone and hurt like crazy. While I may not have been the very model of cool and collected parenting before then, after getting hit by a tissue box I pretty much lost my top. I took his toys out of his room and told him that unless he wanted to be screamed at, he had better stay in his room with the door closed. He cried that he’s not a bad kid and I told him I know that, but he was certainly not acting nicely so he better stay in his room. I admit that I yelled. I’ll even admit that when he threw the box at me, I tossed the action figure I was holding at him. It did not hit him. I did not hit him. But I lost control. Or that’s how it feels. I didn’t tell him I hate him, I didn’t tell him he’s a rotten child, I didn’t verbally or physically abuse him, but I didn’t hold up to my own standards and that really hurts me.

It really pisses me off that I had no parents. It pisses me off that nobody was there to raise me-I had to raise them instead-so I have no road map for good parenting. Oh, I have a road map for rotten parenting, a road map that is crystal clear and punctuated with all sorts of nasty details. I wish, more than anything in the world, that I could take that horrible map and throw it to the bottom of a lake because, dammit, no matter how hard I try to make my own bleeping map, that awful one keeps coming back. I’m so scared that no matter how hard I try to be better than my parents, to do things differently and with more thoughtfulness, I’m destined to become what they were. I can feel it in me. It’s fuzzy, spinning and out of control-fighting to get out. When my mother was like that she was literally like a tornado and it scared the shit out of me. I don’t want my own kid to ever feel afraid of me. I don’t want him to think that my anger is a force of nature. I want him to feel safe with me. Safe in loving me and safe in the knowledge that he is loved.

In the end, I think this whole “thing” was worse for me than for him. He doesn’t have my baggage and he certainly doesn’t have my childhood. He knows he is loved regardless of his behavior and I’m 99% certain that he doesn’t see me as either scary or a force of nature. I know that it’s appropriate for me to get angry at him. I get that-with my brain, anyway. Deep inside, though, is another story. I fight so hard to keep down what I’m afraid to become, that I fear if I let any anger show it’ll take over and I’ll never be able to control it again.

Right now he is watching Peter Pan. I have apologized to him and he apologized to me. I think I’m going to fix lunch and then maybe we’ll go to a museum or a park. I know rewinding the day and starting over is impossible, but I do have the power to make the rest of this day better.