uncontrollable

We had pizza for dinner tonight.  I made pizza for dinner, something the kids enjoy very much, not only because they love the end product, but also because there is mess all over the counter, little leftover balls of dough rolling around that they can play with.  Wheat Flour Play-Doh.

I love making and eating pizza – more accurately, I love making pizza so that I can eat it.  The process is not too hard, and I feel ever so much better about eating all that cheesy goodness if it lies atop a homemade wheat flour crust.  I get a little earth mothery about it all, feeling more than a little proud of myself for being so healthy! So invested in the health of my children!

I should know whenever I begin to travel that specific path that it’s not going to go well.

About the time we were coming to a close on pizza-making Tuesday – the point where my face is red and sweaty from the oven that is hotter than the surface of the sun, the point where I realize that there isn’t quite enough counter space in my kitchen for someone as messy as me (which by the way, is also the same point where I start balancing hot pizza pans across my kitchen sink), the point where I think wait, did I set that timer again or is the last one BURNING – about that time, I thought it would be a great idea to tell the boys to come and get some pizza. But not to touch the pan, please don’t touch the pan, it’s hot it’s really hot it just came out of the oven.  Just come into the already overcrowded kitchen with your plate and I’ll hand it to you.

Yes, you did read that correctly.  I am completely insane.

Of course you know what happened next.  One boy goes for the pizza, since as soon as he gets within a 3 foot range of food all external stimuli are blocked out and the homing instinct kicks in.  Of course he didn’t hear the warning.  Of course he wanted the pizza that just came out of the oven.  Of course it was the tray that was perched on the edge of the sink.

The good news is that nothing really happened to him.  He wasn’t hurt or burned.  Because he could have been.  Badly.

The bad news is I snapped.  I screamed at him in a way that – well, doesn’t the fact that I said screamed tell you enough?  It was not yelling.  Yelling I am pretty okay with, even though I realize that it isn’t the most effective parenting strategy of all time.  This was screaming. Deranged, unhinged, someone should have slapped me really hard screaming.

What can I say now? I had to apologize, to him, to everyone. But what I wish is what everyone wishes: that I could do a good enough job at this that I didn’t have to apologize.

Raising these children never stops. When I am bone tired, they are relentless. They ask me things I don’t expect, they bother me when I want to be left alone, they don’t do what I want them to do when I want them to do it. They are stubborn and loud and whiny and loud and rowdy and difficult and loud.

They turn me inside out and wring all the bitter smallness right out of me. Sometimes, it lands right in front of them, this meanness.  Other times, I am the only one who knows.

I love them with my broken heart, my entire self, my breath and hands and skin and soul. I want to be better; I want to be wonderful, for them. And this – this grind, this everyday – I know that if I hold on, this is what will somehow sand me smooth, rub me soft, make me whole.