Mean

I disappoint myself.

For some reason, (I am guessing a combination of hormones that are a little out of whack & just the loneliness that sometimes comes with being a full-time home-dweller) I have been irritable lately.
Snappy, moody, unpleasant. Arianna is having to live through all of this craziness. She is with me ALL the time, and she probably knows me a lot better than most by now.
She knows how fun I can be; how enthusiastic & silly I am....most of the time. Really, I am pretty upbeat: I do a lot of singing and clapping, and drama (the cheerful kind) is very much a part of my days with my daughter. For the entire first year and a half of Ari´s life I have been a cheerleader.

Well, I have gotten a little tired of cheering. I still have the world to be ecstatic about: the cutest and most amusing child, for one thing. But I´ve grown weary of being a perfect companion.
Most of the day, I want to just take a nap. And another nap. I am tired. Ari isn´t tired at all. She runs around, she greets the world with enthusiasm each morning and looks for adventure in every corner of this crowded house. I can´t keep up with her. She hands me toys & make-belief toys and relies on me for entertainment. I oblige her as much as I can: point at a picture of the moon in one of her books and say in a silly high-pitched voice, "O, kijk, de maan! Wat MOOI!" ("oh, look, the moon! How BEAUTIFUL!"). And then she wants me to read the book again, or to put the puzzle pieces in their place for the 6th time. And my voice drops. Sometimes I´m so wretched I even sigh. And she says, "Mama is moe,"("Mama is tired) with such sweet consideration and concern, and I want to cry because she is so so friendly and I can be such a lifeless cow. (I kind of miss feeling like the funnest Mama on the planet.....)

And sometimes....more regularly than I would like to admit.....I just snap. Ari´s a dear, but she is also very much in her toddler-teens. She does the wrong things ALL the time, and intentionally. She´ll give me a sideway-glance, with a very wicked little twinkle in her beautiful eyes, and then she´ll reach for the computer, or the television. Or the kitchen-cabinets.
She knows exactly what is allowed and what is not. We´ve made it pretty clear. And then she defies us by, say, taking the keys off our laptop keyboard. It´s exhausting.
I used to deal with it quite well, if I may say so myself. I´d correct her consistently and calmly, and much according to the pedagogical protocol. But lately, I´ve been so irritable. Instead of sitting on the floor with her to correct her gently, I´ve been snatching the headphones (or other "stolen" items) out of her hands, yelling "NEE, Ari! Dat mag niet!" ("No, Ari! That´s not allowed!"). And it startles her from time to time. Then I feel like the worst mother on the planet, and I apologize to her, and I explain that Mama just wants her to listen.

It is so awful to see her responses to my impatience. I don´t want to be intimidating. I want to be predictable and calm and fair. She deserves that much. I did so well for a while: really, I applaud myself for the first year and something. It was almost effortless. But now I catch myself a little too late, when Ari has already dropped whatever naughty thing she was doing, and looks at me in shock. And then I hold her and apologize for being too strict, for snapping.

Snap, snap, snap.

There´s little room for excuses here, but I do think it would help if I could get away. Just for a few hours. I would never have dreamed of saying something so selfish a year ago, but things are different now. Every other week or so, it would be kind of nice to have a few hours to myself. Refueling-time. To drop the Mama-role for just a short while, and think about things completely unrelated to my child(ren). Right now, I am not even sure I´m capable of it: of switching my brain off to that overarching part of my existence. Is there anything else?
Having said that, I would probably start missing Ari after the first hour. It´s just the feeling that I can´t do anything, that I can´t just get away, phase out for a little while. That makes me feel a little, well, out of breath, from time to time.

*Now I understand those working-mothers who explain that having a job allows them to be better parents: to be more dedicated when they do spend time with their children. I used to scoff at that argument, but it´s starting to make a whole lot of sense...*

Daniel usually comes home from work at 7ish or 8ish, and only has time to help feed her supper and put her to bed. It would be ideal if we could balance that part of family-life out a little more.
And most people (friends&relatives) are too busy with lives and/or children of their own to mind our toddler. So, it´s just me and Ari....every day.

I do know I will miss it: the togetherness. Even with the arrival of Baby-zus. I´ll miss the closeness that I have with Ari. But sometimes closeness is a little overwhelming.

Whatever. This was just a rant about my irritability....about how it has really shocked me of late. And how I never thought I could be mean to Ari.