Mother Forgets

                I am writing this post as I struggle to see the screen through my tears of frustration and anger.  I am so disappointed in myself!  Not sure if I am the only one who struggles with what I am going to talk about today, if you have any advice please share.  My parents have been out of town since the beginning of this month- so we have been doggy sitting, Chewy, my mom’s dog.  Well, I promised my Mom that I would shave Chewy because his coat had grown quite long and it is hot here in Arizona.  This morning the kids, the dog and I went to my parents’ house so I could give Chewy a haircut.

                Not 100% positive what it is about Grandma’s house, but Samuel just won’t listen to me when we are there.  In the middle of Chewy’s hair cut, I set the clippers down for a moment, and fast as lightning, Samuel picked them up and went straight for my hair.  You have NO idea how close I was to having a new haircut.  Then Samuel wouldn’t stop poking Lily while she was trying to sleep.  Samuel dumped out the majority of a bag of cereal.  Put all of the dogs food into the dogs water, couldn’t keep his hands out of the pile of dog hair, pushed the piano bench over onto the piano pedals and that was not all.  Basically, he was being a two year old boy.

                I was trying so hard to be patient with him and give him other things to play with or other things to do, but I was failing miserably.  I had FINALLY finished shaving the dog and I was desperately trying to clean up and get home when … Samuel went swimming.  In the dog’s water bowl.  Right after I had filled it so we could go out the door.  And I snapped.  I yelled in his little face, spanked his little bottom and sent him to the couch.  I was SO furious as I cleaned up all the water off the floor.  Why couldn’t he just listen to me?! We were practically walking out the door!

                Two minutes later we were in the car on the way home, and as usual the guilt and depression that I always feel after I blow up, hit me.  Why couldn’t I just be more patient?  Why couldn’t I remember that he is just a little boy who isn’t even two years old yet?  Why this?  Why that?  Why?!  The whole drive home I was beating myself up about it.  And this experience made me think of the following story.

Father Forgets

by W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son; I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road, I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before you boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive - and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, form a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding - this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing buy a boy - a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

                Plus, our previous landlord kept almost $300 that should have been returned to us since we were NOT living in our old apartment for the last half of May.  I could have used that money to take my baby girl to the doctor for her one month checkup that she missed.  Oh, and my Mom loaned me her phone for a couple weeks ... and it got lost.  I have searched and searched, and can’t find it anywhere.  Pretty much everything is just feeling a little extra heavy on our shoulders lately.