gUilt & tAntrums

The other day was one of those days that rocks me to my nitty-gritty and troubles me deep down inside. One of those days that has questioning my ability to be a mother, let alone a good mother.

One of those days that I have the feeling like somewhere down the road of my life I went terribly wrong and made a bad decision to become a mother because I was obviously failing miserably. One of those days that ALL mothers have. Doesn't matter who you are, where you live, rich or poor, ALL mothers have these days but most don't like to broadcast them. One of those days where I feel I'm in too deep, in over my head and I can't seem to see the bigger picture.

My God! What happened, I asked? Nothing major and don't take this post as some desperate cry for help. It is just me purging my feelings out into the world, hoping that somewhere someone else will say, "Hey, I've felt that way too. You aren't a freak at all!"

Before it happened, my day was great. I'm with my friends at work we tell stories, we shared jokes, check our account on Facebook, we visited our blogs and blog about everything under the sun to lighten up our life a bit. We had fun, laughed and enjoyed each other's company.

Then evening hit. For some reason bath time was the breaking point for me and yna, my little anaku. Maybe it's because we are not comfortable going to sleep without taking our evening routine and also, because of the weather and I am a little tired.

I was giving yna a bathe like I do every night in her bouncy seat. On the first minute, she was enjoying it as she used to, the next few minutes she goes into a major conniption. I have no idea what set her off. Seriously, NO IDEA. Before, if I encounter things like this, I usually have some idea and can guess what drives her mad, but tonight had me stumped.

I tried to calm down yna so she wouldn't harm herself in bathing but this only raged her more. With her continuous meltdown I managed to take her out of bathe and scrambled to put a diaper on her, only to witness her rip it off minutes later. She was in a furry of her own. I wasn't even able to get to fed her because she was so upset and I didn't know what to do. I had tried changing her, wrapping her, rocking her, swaying her, pacing with her. Nothing. I then decided so make a small bottle to help calm her. Nope, she didn't want that.

My temper burst and forbearance was gone, I scolded her but I was also crying because I really don't know what's happening on her. I left her in her bed feeling defeated. After a few second, after realizing what I have acted, I rushed back to her and I instead put some petroleum jelly to soothe her butt, put some acite de manzanilla on her tummy and her soft spot because I guess she is suffered from gas pain and the like. I put her in her bed, kissed her and told her I loved her. I tried feeding her a little, but she really didn't want it. I can't put jammies on her because she is really fussy! I let her cry for a while and after a few minutes she eventually calmed down and she sort of just slowly gave out and feel asleep. Overly tired? Stopped up with upset tummy from starting solids? Teething? A guess is as good as mine. I let her rest while I walked up and headed to the door to at least refresh my mind and get some fresh air.

After the chaos, I just went into my bed and sat on the bed in a sort of zombie-like state. Like the weight of the world was just hitting me for the first time but still staring on yna's face sound asleep. While I'm staring at yna's face, I asked myself, "What am I doing? Do I have the ability, let alone the stamina for this? What would my mother going to do with me if she knows what I had done yna? Am I totally ill equipped?" These were all the thoughts that were swirling around my head.

What do you do when you feel like this? For me, I take a moment to live the emotion and really feel it. I am learning to except the fact that it is okay to have these feelings and to not like being a mother sometimes. It doesn't mean we don't love our kids or take pride in our families. It just means, like everyone else in their jobs, sometimes you get a little tapped out.

Have you ever felt this way? What was it that set you off? What works for you to regain composure and regain your focus?

I love my baby and I am proud to be her mother, but everyone has bad days sometime.