Runaway Mom: Real Talk About Life As a Mama

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I once started a short-lived online journal to kind of vent on the trials and tribulations of being a newbie to the mother-hood.  

I like looking back at those old posts now and then just to remind myself that I survived the earlier years, which means I’ll most likely survive the tween and teen years….and believe me, sometimes I need that reminder desperately.

Pre-kids I was a traveler.  I lived out of my suitcase for more years than I care to remember as I accepted contract after contract to model abroad.  I worked in what I considered a triangle of Europe-the States-Asia.  From what was then my home base of Portland, Oregon I would travel to Miami for the winter, then over to Milan until the end of spring, and then head to Seoul, Tokyo, Osaka, Taipei, or Hong Kong.  Rinse and repeat.  

This lifestyle fit my gypsy soul to a T.  It wasn’t until I had kids that I took root….but I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t (still) miss life on the road.  Some days more than others.

I had to laugh when I read the post I’m about to share with you below….I’m pretty sure all of us moms, and sometimes dads, have felt this way at one time or another….but that bond with our little heathens is a strong one, isn’t it?  …and thank God for that!

I Almost Ran Away Today.

Today was one of those days in parenting history that had me salivating profusely over the thought of buying a one way ticket to Kuala Lumpur and never looking back. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’ve had one hell of a roller coaster ride with the boy.

I won’t go into detail, because I just don’t want to put out into the Universe too much of what we’ve overcome with this child, but suffice it to say that the fact that I am not locked up in a padded cell rocking myself in a corner in a puddle of my own saliva is pretty awesome.  

So yeah, that…that’s why on days like today, some of the PTSD that I developed from countless years of getting my boy healthy and well comes raging back like a bison on steroids. Crazy thing is that it wasn’t even the boy that set me off today. It was the girl! The easy one! The one who all of the teachers love and adore! The polite, sweet, articulate, little princess!!

Today she became WICKED, and I mean green and with a cape and tights on…broomstick too. This little butterfly of mine has as of late begun to test her boundaries with yours truly in way that I would’ve never dared to do with my own mom.

I grew up with the fear of my mom’s shoe getting thrown at my head, or the wooden spoon upon my bum. Oldschool Cuban parenting at its finest. My child has no idea what life in fear of la chancla is like…and now I am starting to think she may need to spend some time this summer at Camp Abuelita.

My girl is 6….and today she turned into a hybrid of a 2 year old and 13 year old going through puberty. At a local carnival, and in front of her friends and their moms she decided to storm off with arms folded tightly across her chest because the hula hoop contest “did not have the right kind of hula hoops and that is so not fair and I am so mad and I hate this”.

She stormed around the playground until she decided to come undone on her knees and start wailing…you’d think someone had stolen her puppy. So I walked over to her and grabbed her hand…that was that, we were in no way going to stay and commenced to walk her to the car. When she realized that we were leaving she grabbed onto the nearest handrail and started crying even louder at which point I had to lift her, and carry her away to the car.

Holding a rabid raccoon and a dozen jellyfish would’ve been easier and more pleasant of an experience. Trust.

By the time I got to the car my lower back was wrenched and my blood had all but evaporated from boiling so much. I am not some doormat mom, so this totally caught me off guard…like I said, this is my easy kid.

By the time we got home she was fine and singing. Me, not so much. I placed her in her room and took all of my haywire stressballness and poured it into purging several closets of old clothes and toys…and that’s when I saw it….my old travel backpack….sitting way up high in the closet just staring at me forlornly as if asking why I had forsaken it for a life of snot, tantrums, bad attitudes and whining…..and I stood there for a second fantasizing about packing a beach towel and a bikini and running away.

…but then the girl walked out of her room with a picture she had drawn and a note saying sorry and my heart and mind climbed back out of the backpack and into my body. I was still pissed at the kid, but I’d be sticking around….maybe I’ll just go to Vegas for a girls’ weekend one of these days instead.

photo by Nubia Navarro @Pexels

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