I yelled at Lee this morning.

I had Evie on my hip, a spare change of clothes for Lee’s cubby in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other and my purse and work bag on my shoulder. Evie and I were standing in front of the door, waiting on Lee so that we could leave for the day and he was insisting that he needed to bring his tractor to school with him.

First off, he’s not allowed to bring toys into school with him and he knows that. Secondly, even if I were to let him bring it in the car with us, it’s oversized and I knew he would drop it and then have a fit if I didn’t pull over and get out to give it back to him.. and I just wasn’t feeling any of that this morning.

So, after I told him for the third time to put it back in the toy basket, he snapped. He threw it on the floor, burst into tears, and told me that I was being sooooo mean to him and that I’m not his best friend anymore.

So, I yelled.

I don’t like to yell at my children first thing in the morning. I feel like that it ruins their whole day, to have someone yell at you before you’ve even left your house for the day. Just gets you off on a bad start.

But, I snapped.

There is so much happening right now and I feel like every family in the world is definitely feeling how we’re feeling, or can at least relate. Even with all of the COVID madness, D and I are both still working every day. And you’ll never hear us complain, because we are so unbelievably grateful to still be employed in such an uncertain and chaotic time.

But, it’s not easy.

There’s a huge part of me that is trying to go above and beyond for all of the customers and clients of the business that I work for. I return every email and every phone call and some are overwhelming. We live in a town that is almost completely dependent on the University that is here. And people are hurting. Our neighbors, our friends, good people are truly hurting right now.

And, at the same time, there’s an even bigger part of me that desperately wants to make sure my babies are safe at all times. More so than usual. I want to stay home with them and pull them as close to my bosom as I can possibly get them and just hold them there.

But, for our family, that’s just not realistic. They have to go to school. And they don’t understand why two thirds of their friends haven’t been there in over a month.

And they don’t understand why they can’t come to the grocery store and pick out their own snacks.

Or why they can’t go to Home Depot and ride in the race car carts.

Or why we can’t grab a smiley face waffle at Huddle House or a plate of tacos at El Agave.

And here I am, in the midst of my baby living through a worldwide pandemic at the ripe age of 3, yelling at him about a toy tractor.

The thought hit me and actually stopped me mid-yell. He’s having a tough enough time as it is, being a 3-year-old. Without taking anything else going on in the world into consideration, he’s only 3. His sister is turning 1 this week and he’s going to have to sit through her birthday dinner and watch us sing to her. Watch her blow out her candle. Watch her open her presents. Continue to share ALL of his toys with her. Share his snacks with her. Let her take his juice cup from him. Let her take the toy LITERALLY out of his hands and walk away with it. He got in trouble at school last week for spitting. He got in trouble yesterday for spitting. He got in trouble yesterday for not listening to me when I told him to stop jumping on the couch. He got in trouble yesterday for snatching his own juice cup away from Evie.

The kid deals with a lot.

And for the most part, he takes it in stride.

He is a really, really, amazing little boy and I know how lucky I am to be his Mom. But some days, he’s just a lot.

And on those days, Momma yells.

And on the days that Momma yells, he reminds me how lucky I am to be his Mom. We pulled into the daycare parking lot, having not spoken the entire way there, and I came around the side of the car, opened his door, unbuckled his car seat, and he hopped down onto the floor and turned to me.

We were eye-to-eye and he said, without any prompting, “Mom, I’m sorry I cried and yelled at our house. You’re still my best friend. Dad is too”.

“I love you baby,” I told him as I hugged him tight.

“Love you too. Come on, we gotta go see what’s for breakfast,” he said as he jumped down.

xxxx A