the best nest

I started writing a post on Sunday night after a very ‘ordinary’ day.  Don’t judge – this is life people, this is really how I felt, I am a great mother, a fabulous mother even but on Sunday I felt ordinary, acted ordinary and was definitely an ordinary mother;

Monday is so close now that I can almost feel the barrage of ‘hurry’, ‘don’t forget….’, ‘pack this’, get out of the house and don’t return for eight long hours. I do not like this feeling. Today has been a black day.
When I struggle with Dave being away for so long, I feel like a failure, the one-child mummy that couldn’t. As if having an only child doesn’t come with allowances for bad days. Everything is easy with just one right?
I’m not busier with Dave away, I do all the Ethan toting anyway, I’m not doing more chores really, I am cooking more eggs than normal but I can handle that, I’m not lonely – I have my Mum here so adult conversation is never far away. What I am is totally wiped from the massive emotional and attention requirement that Ethan now demands from just one person. That would be me.
I just wanted to run away {from him} screaming today. Far far away and screaming so I couldn’t hear MAMA? for the millionth time in an hour. Here comes the mummy guilt again. E has quite massive OCD tendencies and these manifested all damn day today. One thing after another, beginning with googling how to take care of catfish (this incorporated water temp, filter and pump requirements blah blah blah). He wants a catfish because he is obsessed with River Monsters and the Gooch catfish in India. We are not getting a catfish or a tropical aquarium. We have a perfectly good FREE Minnow type fish called Todd that was gifted to us (complete with tank and pump) just yesterday. Pet fish – check.
This was followed by the everlasting persistent request to move the aforementioned fish tank to the office by his laptop. I wasn’t getting to this fast enough and I was nagged about this relentlessly. The final round of the day was about getting a fishing rod down from the roof of the garage so he could play with it. Again, the nagging this child can inflict is without equal. God sure must love this little try-er.

The point of me even publishing this {I wasn’t going to, it was cathartic enough just to write it} is that today I got the damn fishing rod down from the roof of the garage, I found some hardy pliers and clipped the hook off the tackle, we found a suitable grab-nabber type toy and I tied this onto the sinker.  Ethan had his rod.  He was so happy, grateful and really just plain old dee-lighted to be catching giant catfish in the front yard.

I wondered why this was too hard for me to do on Sunday?  Why I hadn’t given him the 15 minutes it took to get the rod set-up?  Mama guilt.

Ethan played happily with his rod for at least an hour, how rad is my kid, I thought.  He could have been inside watching tv, playing on the computer or his iPod.  He could have been throwing a tantrum.  Oh snap, HE IS THROWING A TANTRUM.

A massive birds nest had snarled his line and oh god the world was ending.  And that was the end of fishing on the front lawn.

I knew there was a reason why I didn’t get that fishing line down on Sunday.