Superego and the Giant Squid

Yesterday, my children had a huge fight about a vampire squid. We were driving back from church (church! Of all places!) and they were doing the whole "I play squid!" - "No, no, I play squid" - "I squid, Iiiiiiiiiii squid!" routine that ended, predictably, with then screaming at each other and me shouting over the top: "If you keep fighting, Mummy and Daddy will take your squid away". Not quite the conversation I  had hoped and planned to be having with my children on the way home from worship, or ever. It pretty much stunk. But then, this whole week has stunk. It's been awful, maybe the worst week ever. (Am I exaggerating? No, I don't think I am).

For reference, here is the squid. 

Low point: I'm pretty sure that would be what happened when we went to our first ever Ethiopian adoptive families weekend away. It was a great weekend - the family we all stayed with was really kind and so welcoming and hospitable- just the kind of people I want to be when I grow up.  That's not the bad part. The bad part was when Pink and Blue got up -when they were supposed to be napping - went through my bag, found my cosmetic purse, opened my super-long-last lipstick and used it to draw on the walls. You know, the walls in someone else's house. The pristine white walls of the really nice people who had us to stay.

That was pretty bad. It was also pretty bad when the children wouldn't say sorry, and I realised that we are raising sociopaths and came down and cried at the kitchen table in front of about fifteen people. (Hi, those people).  Yeah, I'd say that was the low point. At least, it was certainly the low point until a few days later, on our wedding anniversary, when I realised that the children had been raging for about 72 hours straight and J and I just stared at each other glumly and I could tell both of us were thinking that this was not what we had in mind on that sunny August day eight years ago.

They continued raging through the week, rage like I've never seen before, and I began to wonder whether I would next be able to spend a day with them where they didn't drive me to tears. One of them kept saying don't touch me, Mummy which is not in character at all, and I'm pretty sure that it was the weekend away that sent them crazy. They had fun, I'm glad we went and we'll go again next year, but I think we'll stock up on Xanax beforehand.  I did everything I could to keep things calm and regulated afterwards, but they seemed to want to be dysregulated, want to be miserable, and when a three year old wants to be miserable it's pretty hard to stop them.  We must be doing something wrong, I kept thinking. I would blame it on the fact that last week tied in with me being a big bowl of hormone soup, except J kept saying the same thing and everyone knows men don't have hormones.

 I was reading something recently about honesty in writing about what life is really like as an (adoptive) parent and as I sat on the kitchen floor on Thursday, next to the potties,  trying to dodge the biting from one child and the hitting from another (see? sociopaths) I realised why it's never really ever possible to get the raw honesty from other people that we all crave during our darkest times. Sitting on that kitchen floor, I found myself thinking nobody ever admits that things are as bad as this but of course, the problem is that there really aren't any words to describe what 'this' is like, afterwards, to other people. Even the most raw and honest way of describing those horrible moments falls short of really meaning anything to someone who wasn't there. By the time you actually get to sit at your computer and type it, it's all filtered by the fact that it happened days ago, or hours ago and it's written in complete sentences, not in some kind of frightening red mist. (Unless you have one of those experimental type blogs. Not me). It's just - she hit me. He bit me. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, it sounds bland, and not that bad, and in a few more days maybe I can put a funny spin on it (not yet).

All through this nightmare week, my superego kept pulling me aside for helpful little sidebars. [Gosh, you really hated it when you children behaved like trolls in front of all your friends, didn't you, Claudia?] Uh huh.  [And then you yelled. It's interesting to be experiencing this level of toxic shame, isn't it? See how it stops your brain working properly? Well, maybe you should remember this feeling next time you yell at your kids.] I guess, but your editorialising my life is kind of annoying me. [I just think you could turn this difficult time into a learning experience, with a little bit of effort.] Maybe I could, but I'm not sure I want to.  [You're having trouble making good choices right now, aren't you, because you've got so many stress toxins in your system? Well, what does that teach you?]  I think it teaches me that if you were a real person, it would be a pretty good choice to smack you in the mouth.  [Don't get huffy. I'm just saying.].

I hate that smug cow.

Anyway.  Maybe sitting on that kitchen floor trying to break up with a Freudian construct was the low point, or maybe the low point was when I fell face down into a puddle of wee because I tripped while carrying a full potty.Or maybe it's something else entirely, something I've blocked out.  It was such a bad week. Things seem much better again today but I feel rubbed raw.

Anyway. That's been me, lately. And now I'm going to show you some cute pictures of Pink baking that will make you think none of that is true. 

(don't judge the hair. That was what we did while we were waiting for the cookies to bake). 

Here's to better days to come.