I Can't Do This

There have been times as a parent when the soundtrack running through my mind while I deal with the child in front of me is "I can't do this. I can't do this." I heard this clearly and plainly as my three year old had us sequestered in a bookstore bathroom while throwing the Fit to End All Fits (it worked out just like the War to End All Wars did). I distinctly remember thinking it while trying to get my crying 5th grader in to school long after the morning bell had rung. It's as if everything grinds to slo-mo and the most distinct thing I can hear momentarily is "I can't do this. I can't do this." It solidifies those moments in time when I'm just not sure I'm going to make it through. Maybe it functions as a mental time out: a strange coping mechanism that doesn't actually feel as if it's helping me cope better.

This morning Anna took her first skating lesson. I think the 12 dollars I paid for the 6 weeks is a bargain. Not only can Anna stand up on her own (I never thought to teach this first: I've always dragged the kids out by the hand and supported them with an arm while they flail around the ice), she can totter/skate around unaided too. And for the same price I'd pay for a movie ticket, I am far more entertained. 3/4 of the class are little guys learning to play hockey, and if you took off all the padding and such that they were wearing and stacked it next to them, the pile would be bigger than they are. The kids look like weeble wobbles. They all grab on to one another for support and knock each other over like dominoes. And get back up, and do it again. Anna got wise to this and tried really hard to skate away from everyone else. The point is, she loved her skating teacher, loved the whole experience, and can't wait until next week. It was a totally enjoyable and stress-free morning.

And then she started crying on the way home. About school.

I won't bore you with all the details of our conversation. The gist of it was that Anna is convinced her teacher doesn't like her and she doesn't want to go to school. Each day it becomes more apparent that I am totally inept at helping her through this.

Maybe this is a paradox. When I admit to myself that I can't, it is the first step to being able to. I vaguely remember that the "I can't do this" moments were also the rock bottom moments. After that, the only way to go was up and out. Not that I have been proud of the way all of the other "I can't do this" experiences ended. I think Anna exhausted herself on the bottom of the restroom floor in Schuler Books after scaring away several older women who forgot that attempting to reason with an unknown, fit-throwing three year old is as good of an idea as climbing in a cage with a hungry lion. Molly eventually just went to school without crying again. Things popped up, went away, and for a time left me exhausted and good for nothing in their wake. I don't know that I helped my children learn and grow through those experiences, and even worse, I don't know that I didn't damage their psyche in the meantime either.

Dear Molly and Anna, please stay close all of your lives so that you can save thousands of dollars by just talking to one another about your mother instead of to an expensive therapist. Everyone else, I hope you aren't expecting anything out of me for awhile except a mess.