CODE RED TANTRUM Where are the Reinforcements?

Mayday. Mayday.

Here I am on the front lines of parenthood. Two minutes ago everything seemed fine but incoming - dead ahead - I see and hear a code red tantrum developing... I repeat, CODE RED TANTRUM. Three children under the age of five (mine) have all begun to cry all at once. Two boys and a baby girl... getting louder by the second. The boys are scrabbling on the ground over a yellow TONKA dump truck that they both want to play with, even though there is another identical truck sitting less than four feet away from them. The baby has a runny nose, she's hungry, and will only calm down if I'm holding her. I was trying to make dinner, but I'd better turn off the stove.

This may sound silly to people without children, people with calm children, people whose children are more than three years apart in age. People (sorry, but from our experience it's true) with daughters. It will probably sound silliest of all to people with more than three children - like our friends who have four and talk about how easy it was to have only three. I mean, come on - I'm talking about toddlers with a plastic truck and a thirsty baby, right? Okay, so they're crying in unison. For the fifth time today.

What's the big deal?

You're right of course -- when compared with ending world hunger, finding homes and jobs for the homeless, solving the Middle East crisis, ending racial tension, getting universal health care passed in the USA -- my problems do seem petty. I freely admit it. There are people dying all over the world at this very moment, dying of preventable diseases they got from drinking contaminated water. There are women just like me ~ 33 years old, wife, mother, once a dreamer of dreams ~ who are cradling their crying children and trying to explain why their lives have been torn apart by war, greed, murder.

I care about those women. I want to help them. I know that my life path has been graced by incredible luck.

And I HATE that I have become a whiner.

I'm embarrassed to even be telling you about my kids' tantrum because I hold myself up to an impossible ideal of motherhood (my own mother) and with every passing day that I don't live up to my memories of her excellence I feel like more and more of a parenting failure. The house I grew up in was always clean. The laundry was folded and ironed. Dinner was always homemade and ready on time, and above all, our house was quiet. I don't know how she did it. My house is nothing like this.

Over the past five years and three babies, I've realized that I will never be my own mother. I am a different mother, with a different skill set. This is not necessarily a bad thing. So, I stick with a cliche that now works as my parenting mantra: "90% of success is just showing up". I repeat it to myself all of the time. Listening to them screaming, I'm repeating it right now.

I detach one crying boy's hand from its death grip on the hair of the other crying boy and briefly imagine peace. A home where my children play happily side by side. Laughing. Joyful.

Twenty minutes later, despite my best efforts (reasoning, working on sharing, distraction, giving a snack, giving a time-out), everyone is still crying. I take a deep breath and count to ten in my head. Upstairs on my nightstand I've got a stack of parenting manuals, and close at hand a cell phone with my best friend's home telephone number on speed dial. I've already run through the strategies I used for years as an elementary school teacher - many of which were wonderful for conflict resolution in the classroom. So WHY, WHY, WHY isn't anything working?

As my own chin begins to quiver and I fight back the tears welling up in my eyes, I think to myself, "I need someone to take care of me too!" I only slept for about three hours last night. I forgot to eat lunch because I was too busy putting the kids down for their naps, changing diapers, refilling bottles and bathing the baby. I dozed off twice sitting up while reading nap-time stories. My hair smells of rotten milk and I can't remember if I actually brushed it today. At this rate, dinner won't be ready before 8.

I feel so alone.

I have a great husband, but he's at work.
I have a great mother who treats me like gold, but she has hit her own "golden years" and is now traveling far away.
I have wonderful friends and siblings, many of whom have kids of their own but there is literally nobody I can call for advice at this exact moment - even if I had the time to pick up the telephone. Which I don't. (Not like they could hear me speaking over this ruckus anyway.)

And this is when it hits me - the brainstorm. I am not alone because somewhere among the nearly 7 billion people on this planet, there has got to be another mother feeling exactly the same as I am right now.

So, overwhelmed mommies of the world, this blog is for you. I hope it will slowly grow and become a resource that you can turn to at moments when you are feeling completely alone... when you need advice about how to get through your day and on to the next one... a reminder that you've got to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help those around you... and most of all ~ a big huge hug ~ when you just need someone to take care of you too.