Me vs. him

I shouldn't have done this but if I had to guess, I have a feeling a lot of mom's before me have done the same thing.

One early morning, a couple weeks before Christmas, I woke up way before my alarm, panicking about all I needed to get done before Christmas.

As I lay there making lists in my head while the sun still slept, I could hear the peaceful snores of Hubby next to me. I wondered if he, once in his life, ever woke up early worried about how everything for Christmas was going to get done.

I was guessing that was a big fat no. So as the Christmas to-do list floated around my brain, I also started to think about all my regular "mom" responsibilities and began worrying about how they were supposed to get done in addition to the holiday list. I had a multitude of laundry to tackle, school assignments to check on, appointments to get the girls to, and although decorated festively, a filth bucket of a house to clean.

To top it all off, my 8-year-old had broken her right wrist a few days before, which is a whole other story in itself, but she was basically back to the toddler stage. I was back to helping her take a bath, brush her teeth and hair, help her get dressed, you name it.

Plus, the two older girls were suffering with terrible head colds but had basketball games coming up so I was trying desperately to help them feel better too.

Of course there were several holiday parties to prepare for, gifts to buy and food to make in addition to regular nightly meals, grocery store runs and oh ya, my actual job that I am required to go to everyday.

Anyway, I lay there in the wee hours stewing over all my to-do's, I made the mistake of forming a list in my mind of all the things I do versus what Hubby does when it comes to our family.

I literally saw the chart in my head with our names in two separate categories with my list continuing on and on and his stopping at about 5-10 items. Now I know I was just bitter and I couldn't compare apples to oranges if we had to weight the responsibilities, AND I admit that a lot of what I do is my choice but I'll just say that the lists were quite unbalanced. Like I'm even willing to say 90/10. As I kept mentally adding to my list, I could feel the resentment boil up in me.

He laid there snoozing away totally oblivious to my irritation, probably dreaming about shooting the big buck or cruising around in a fixed up Camaro, no clue that his spouse was about to sit up, right there at dark thirty in the morning and start ranting, "Do you have any clue what all I do for this family?"

Well, when the sun finally rose and the day wore on, I realized my selfish attitude and knew that comparing what each other does is not a good path to go down, and so I decided to let it go but for some reason I couldn't squash the bitterness that still lay at the surface of my mind. I still had 2 million things to do and it was still me the girls were asking for help from and it was still me that was responsible for us having a great Christmas or a crappy one. And not a single soul in my house had any inkling of that nor an ounce of appreciation for it.

So ... as with any volcano that seems calm at first, about 9:30 p.m., the volcano erupted and the lava boiled over and the lop-sided list, that I told myself I wouldn't mention, was blurted out with much frustration.

I'd had it and the weight of the holidays on top of regular life crushed me. Our kitchen, which is usually a fun, safe haven, quickly became a war zone in which the girls took cover before approaching.

I saw them out of the corner of my eye, pretending to watch tv but secretly listening. After some time, the smallest one braved the danger zone enough to give us both hugs before bed but the other two secretly snuck off to bed to avoid any stray bullets or comments. I wasn't ashamed of my meltdown though. The air needed cleared and I'm sorry, but the girls also needed to learn that mommies that are trying their darned best to make a good life for them, and especially a good Christmas, sometimes lose their ever-loving mind. And unfortunately, in most cases, Dad gets the brunt of it in some form or fashion.

Anyway, I'm not proud of my "list" but busy mamas with busy kids with the holidays approaching can bring out the worst in any mom. But now the holidays are over so no more excuses and no more lists.

And I decided that perhaps one of my New Year's Resolutions should be to starting asking for more help instead of trying to do it all alone.