Where to Find Patience When Running on Empty

All of the patience strategies from the books I've been reading this month are great, but what do you do when you wake up absolutely exhausted from a mostly sleepless night, and you can already feel your patience reserves are completely depleted before your feet have even hit the bedroom floor? It's not so much that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed as that I just had no impulse control and could tell my fuse was going to be really short. I tend to get overstimulated easily when I'm tired or not feeling well, and today was a banner day for sensory issues; my nerves were completely frayed, so every noise, light, and smell automatically put me on the defensive.

If you have small children, you know that it's the days where you have no patience that small children see fit to attempt to test your limits the most. So, you can imagine that on this particular morning, my children were displaying their absolute worst behavior. 3-year-old daughter "A" was making approximately one demand every ten seconds. Mama, I want juice. Mama, I need a snack. Mama, I want to watch "Bluey." Mama, I can't find Baby Rapunzel. The baby, nine-month-old son "T" screamed hysterically any time I left his line of sight, slammed his tiny, chubby fits on his highchair tray, and threw his food all over the dining room (rather than simply signing or saying, "all done," both of which he is perfectly capable of doing). My husband "R" was, fortunately, standing by patiently to take the kids to school--normally I take them, but I think he could tell I was about to completely lose it.

I honestly don't know how we all made it out of the house alive, but it may have something to do with the fact that within fifteen minutes of me waking up, I thrust both children at my husband and shooed them out the door, a solid 45-minutes faster than I have ever done their morning routine. As R crossed the threshold with the kids, carrying both like footballs beneath his arms as they struggled powerfully to get free like tiny criminals evading arrest, I tossed him the baby's daycare bag and called out, "Tell the school that A's eating breakfast there!" without bothering to spare them a second glance before shutting the door and turning the deadbolt. I slid to the ground with my back to the door, breathing hard, and sat there in shell-shocked silence for several minutes, desperately trying to decompress.

Okay, so definitely not my finest moment as a parent, but at least I hadn't yelled at anyone or said anything hurtful, which is definitely major progress. After another half hour of puttering around the house in a state of complete mindless overwhelm, I downed some coffee, scarfed down a small breakfast, and was able to pull myself together enough to apologize to R for being short with him whenever he returned from daycare drop off. But, after doing a quick scan of my body and mental state, I realized my systems were not only not performing optimally but weren't really functioning well at all--and likely would be offline completely very soon if I didn't do something to reboot quickly. I had hit a level of exhaustion that all the caffeine in the world wouldn't fix.

Every muscle and joint in my body was sore from being clenched tight, and I generally felt like I'd been beaten up. Even though I had plenty of housework and work-work to do, I realized I had to press pause on my day to take care of myself, or I was going to completely crash.

My sweet husband helpfully reminded me that we had unused massage credits and recommended I go get a massage. Since I knew the kids were having fun at daycare, I tried not to feel guilty about taking some "me" time (Note: moms are notoriously bad about feeling guilty for taking time for ourselves, but we definitely shouldn't--how else are we going to be able to take care of everyone else?) So, I booked an appointment in the middle of the day, knowing that I'd have to make up the work hours later...but that's a problem for future me. Post-massage me is just glad that I am feeling well enough now that I'm not liable to stab someone or accidentally drive my car down the wrong side of the road in sheer exhaustion. Feeling more optimistic, I sat down to get my day started. And for a moment, I truly thought it was going to be an okay sort of day after all...

...until I realized it was Thursday, the most dreaded of all weekdays by far. More on that in my next post, "Tiny (Feral) Dancer."