I went for an eye follow up today, all by myself and it was wonderful.  I arranged and then rearranged some arrangements so I could grace the doctors all by myself.

Last appointment, my show with the children was just short of completely humiliating and totally embarrassing.  Actually, it wasn’t short of, it was!  The kids argued and voices were loud-cries and screeches by the darling Zane with some antagonistic pushing and shoving by the lovely Zoe.  Then, they decided to try out the super cool equipment WHILE I WAS IN THE CHAIR being examined.  It wasn’t exactly easy for me to square the children away while I had a big machine supporting my chin and pressing on my forehead.  I could only give them so many looks that mean, “If you don’t get your act together, you are really asking for trouble,” while the doctor was acting completely patient.  Eventually, I had to excuse myself from the conversation and examination with the doctor and put Zoe in one corner of the examine room and Zane in the opposite corner with a threat to take away every single quarter they had earned thus far (jars of coins has been our summertime earnings for anything from chores to lovely attitudes and manners).  It seemed to work… temporarily.  Needless to say, I felt like a complete failure of a mother with crazy children acting up in one of the quietest places in Washington, next to the library.  I couldn’t even get my kids to behave for 10 minutes, act in control or relax and be patient. 

Back to the appointment…  I arrived, she greeted me at the front desk.  They know me there, by name, and they have gazillion patients.  I shouldn’t be proud of that (even though it does feel good to have somebody know me) I’m sure its because who could forget an act like that?  Anyhow, she asked a simple question, “How are you?”  Actually, she may have asked, “How are your kids,” now that I think about it.  It didn’t matter what she said because it was an open door to profess my undying need for school to start ASAP!  My response, “My kids are driving me crazy and I can’t wait for school to start.”  I shouldn’t have.  She didn’t want to hear it, I’m sure.  It was her job to meet and greet the patients.  But she asked and I responded.  I needed to voice it.  My nerves were fried and nearly at the end of my rope (why do we use terms like “rope” to describe our ability to completely lose it at any moment?)

It was a difficult morning with Zoe expressing her dislike (complete hatred) for Washington, and the fact that she had nothing to wear in Washington (yep, she blamed Washington).  I won’t even tell you how I feel about that, Ok, I will.  No matter where we live, she has problems with clothes and we just bought her tons of new clothes that she loves.  We did a fashion show and I photographed her favorite outfits and put together a fashion book for her so she could look often and get ideas for outfits, but it was just something to be angry about.  She cried and cried and didn’t want to get ready and I reminded her about my appointment and that I needed to get out the door.  I am sad when she is sad.  Why do I have to be the one to hold it together and soothe her?  Sometimes I want to fall on the floor too and cry that I can’t find anything to wear either.  I want to cry that I miss my family, friends and my house, I want to cry that I don’t have a kitchen table and we eat on a 6 foot Lifetime table and folding chairs everyday, I want to cry that I miss seeing my nieces and nephew play with my kids-even if it is loud and messy, I want to cry that it is hard to be a mother, let alone mother to a sad little girl.  I want to cry that I miss good Mexican food and Sunday nights at my mom’s house.  I want to cry too…

So, she asked me about my morning in one way or another and I answered.  It was like she opened a shaken bottle of rootbeer.  The good news is that I think she found in me someone that would listen to her similar complaint…, “Me too, my son has had the worst attitude lately.”  So, we pow wow’d and had a venting moment and then went back to loving our jobs as a mom.