One Hot Mess Linkup

Blythe at The Fike Life has initiated a linkup for us to share our hot messes. Because nothing makes a hot mess feel better than seeing some other hot messes!

Blythe shared her closet as her mess, but I have to say: I don't think it quite counts. Her closet is messy because the closet system failed. I'm too embarrassed to show my closet because it's like that for no good reason. I'm just messy. It's too small, I have too much stuff, I hate putting laundry away... It's a combination of all those things, none of which amount to an actual good excuse like, "The closet system crapped out."

At first I thought about this and thought that my house is in decent shape right now. There aren't any huge messes (excepting my closet), and if you ignore the fact that I washed the same load of laundry three times because I forgot to take it out of the washer the first two times (durrrrrh), I'm on top of my game!

And then I remembered.

Yesterday.

Oh good gracious, yesterday. I spent yesterday in periodic tears because my daughter might hate me. About a week and a half or two weeks ago, she started this weird thing. Every time she sees me, she slaps herself in the face and says, "NO! Key-a!" I have never, ever smacked her in the face, so I can only assume that she's trying to frame me to Child Protective Services. Then, every morning this week, she threw the mother of all tantrums in the morning about nothing. Our routine is that I let her wake up on her own, and then I retrieve her from her crib, milk at the ready, and she drinks her milk while I change her diaper and then I dress her. We bring breakfast with us to her daycare, because she's just had a cup of milk and she prefers to wait before eating.

But this week, the routine was more like: I let her wake up on her own. I went into her room and she greeted me cheerfully, and handed me all of her crib friends (pacifier, lovie, stuffed Lambie and blanket). I picked her up and carried her out of her room and as soon as we crossed the threshold, she unleashed on me. Three mornings in a row. And I'm not talking about a little whining; I'm talking about full-on screaming such that I was genuinely concerned that my neighbors were going to call the police on me. I would try to hand her milk to her and she would bat it away like it was poison. I would try and hold her and she would lash out at me like I was hurting her. I would put her down and she would scream even louder like I was abandoning her.

There was absolutely nothing I could do to calm her. Yesterday morning was the strongest tantrum yet, and it only ended when she caught a glimpse of my blotchy, tear-stained face. It made her feel bad to see me crying, which is fair because she was absolutely making me cry for no better reason than that she felt like it.

Check out the ironic outfit.

I gathered my jangled nerves and got her to daycare -- through a monsoon, which did nothing to improve my appearance -- at which point I broke down again while telling her nanny about our morning. I cried again on the phone with my husband, because she was making me feel like a terrible parent. I didn't know what was wrong with her, I didn't know how to fix it, and she pushed me away like I was the cause of all of her problems. I cried again when my boss asked me, "How's it going?"

I was a HOT. MESS.

So Daddy is taking over morning duty for a couple of weeks even though he has to rearrange his whole schedule to do so. I shouldn't let an eighteen-month-old rattle me, and I'm not an easily rattled person, but I just couldn't do it again. This morning, she woke up and Daddy did the whole morning routine and she was fine. Cheerful. Happy to be alive.

Sigh.