Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Little Blips

 

Hope Roseberry

Tuff and Colt run from room to room in varying degrees of dress screeching at the top of their lungs like tornado sirens. A toy of some sort, probably their toy steering wheel because I can hear Mickey Mouse say “roadster racers,” crashes into a kitchen cupboard, causing Gunner to fuss in his bassinet next to my workstation.

My spirited and sometimes annoying boys are my whole world. Tuff, he’s the oldest with vibrant hazel eyes just like his daddy, are in stark contrast to his bleach blonde hair. He is also usually the ringleader for all the mayhem. Colt is my middle son. He is a bit of a butter ball that wears his heart on his sleeve and is always more than willing to follow along in all of Tuff’s adventures. Then there is Gunner, weighing in at a solid 8 pounds 10 ounces with skin as soft as a peach and a cry that can rival a mountain lion.    

I have a mantra of sorts that I repeat to myself repeatedly all day long. “Hold it together. Just until bedtime" Pleading with myself to not lose my sanity every five minutes. Clothes, toys and blankets cover almost every available surface. The kind of mess where you look around wondering where you should even start to try and clean it up. I swear I am raising farm animals both outside and inside my home. If I didn’t love them wholeheartedly, I would throw every toy away no matter how much it upset them, but I have loved them since before their first breath was ever even drawn, which only adds more confusion to the raging battle of emotions that are on a constant loop in my mind.

It’s not logical, the way your mind goes to war with itself causing mass amounts of anger, sadness, and confusion with no real direction. Having one child dependent on you is hard enough. Having three children needing you every waking moment of the day, while trying to work a full-time job based out of your living room, is complete mental and physical exhaustion. There’s no escape, no break. Working from home with two toddlers and a newborn is the mother’s edition of Dante’s inferno. Too much of my horror, I am living it in 3-D every single day.

“Please stop.” I meant to say it with caring authority, but my voice comes out more of an exhausted whisper and the boys play on. My home has become a thousand and some square feet of isolation, mixed with chaos in the matter of a month. Thanks to the COVID pandemic I now work from home with a my four-year-old and two-year-old that are constantly running amok, and of course, I cannot forget Gunner, our newest little addition to this crazy family. My work email chimes repeatedly with incoming health insurance claims and updates that need processing. There is always something that needs done whether it be work or child related. Too often than not they need done at the exact same time.

Gunner is fussing in earnest now wanting to be held and fed, always wanting to be held and fed it seems. Picking him up I get him settled in a football carrying hold as the plump brunette nurse had called it. All I know is it’s the only way he will latch, and I must sit ramrod straight the whole time. My skin is sticky from drooled milk, and my hair at this point is doing its best impression of a bird's nest.

The cacophony of noises matches a construction zone, I feel and look like a dumpster, and what on earth is that smell? The light from my computer screen burns my tired eyes making me squint to read the page. Everything is blurring together into one giant mess of stimulation. Everything feels jumbled up, like a soda bottle that has been shaken to the point that you can feel the pressure from the outside. Stimulation overload only leads to one of two things. Either you eventually explode, or you shut down. Every loud noise, every cry, the smell of ammonia emanating from the diaper bin surrounds me. Every nerve ending is on fire with undesired stimulation. Threading my fingers through my hair I begin to pull at the messy strands. But it does not stop it all from crashing down on me and I cannot take another solitary second of this madness.

“Would you all just shut up for once!” I shrieked to the point all I hear is the shallow rapid sound of my own breathing. For a second I feel like I purged a small amount of all that stimulation that has been needling me.

Then for just a moment there was complete, tangible silence. However just like before it doesn’t last long. Gunner begins to wail; Tuff and Colt dash off down the hall to their bedrooms without so much as making eye contact with me. In that moment realization dawns on me. I screamed at my children. The three greatest gifts this world has to offer, and I just released all my pent-up anger out on them.

Peering down at Gunner’s tear stricken face my heart stumbles over itself. Scooping him up I make my way down the hall to Tuff’s room all the while making shushing sounds at Gunner to try and calm him down. When I reach Tuff's room, I find them sitting on his bed in complete shock. Sinking onto the bed with them I begin to sob. “Mommy is sorry” I whisper to them repeatedly. I am not exactly sorry that I yelled, ashamed maybe, feeling broken. Little arms wrap around me, “It otay mommy.” And the tears fall faster.

It wasn’t until later that night after the boys had been tucked into bed and Hunter had finally gotten home from work that I allowed myself to process the events of the day. Laying in the dark confines of my room I allowed myself to admit the truth that I had desperately tried to hide. Postpartum depression has been eating away at me a little more each day. I want badly to be able to pull myself together. To keep everything together but that is not happening, has not been happening. Where there should have been laughter and patience, there was only anger and fatigue. Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes as I think about the way my boys looked at me today. It took seeing three confused and hurt faces for me to realize that I have been slipping for a while now and unless I do something, I will only continue to morph into someone I do not want to be. Someone I will not recognize.

The soft yellow sun is streaming through my bedroom window warming my face and pulling me from a long night's sleep. I can hear the clank of dishes and little boy squeals of laughter coming from the kitchen. “Mommy wuv pantates Daddy!” Tuff exclaims in that way that usually only parents can decipher what is being said. A smile starts to pull at the corner of my lips. Because in this moment I can begin to feel the pieces of myself start to come back together. Surely laughter cannot be too far behind. It took reaching my breaking point to realize that even though there are lists of things to be done and little people that rely on me, if I do not put myself first at least sometimes I will be no good to anyone. I also realized I cannot hold our little world up all by myself.

After about a month of antidepressants and relinquishing some responsibilities to my husband, I began to notice changes. Small blips here and there of my old self shining through. Until eventually those blips became days.