My son can’t walk. He can’t crawl, he can barely scoot, and he is certainly not mobile. Yet sometimes I still need to just go and hide from him. 

Yesterday afternoon my husband walked into our closet to find me curled up next to the electric fireplace (which we moved in there to keep the baby warm at night–yes, he sleeps in our closet). In the dark. With the door closed. Like the amazing man that he is, he pulled all the pillows off the bed, laid them on our closet floor, and joined me. We spent half an hour curled up in the dark on the closet floor with a blanket because sometimes that is what sanity looks like, and by golly if you need to hide in the closet to stay sane, you go for it.

Obviously, it had been a rough day. For some reason my son decided to go on a sleeping strike and didn’t take one nap all day. Instead, every time I would put him down to sleep he would scream bloody murder until I picked him up. Usually, I would just let him scream bloody murder–he’s not going to die if I let him cry and I am a firm believer that attachment parenting leads to insane parents. We are the couple that watches at our baby chewing on a pinecone and does nothing but mumble about what a strong immune system he’s going to have. Despite being very laid-back, he has been 100% healthy since the day he was born–he’s a strong kid. Yesterday, though, he didn’t just cry himself to sleep. Oh no. He screamed and wailed and fought with every fiber of his little being for hours. He screamed through my workout, he screamed while I made dinner; the only time he didn’t scream is when I picked him up and then he went back to his perfectly happy and giggling self. Perhaps he was struggling with insecurity. By the time my husband came home from work, I still had my wits about me but they were about to vanish.

That is how I ended up in the closet.

I don’t have a picture of that moment to share because I was too frazzled and it was dark in the closet, which is not the ideal picture taking set up.

There comes a point in parenthood where you’ll be holding your little human being and he’ll be trying to wriggle out of your arms and chew your nose and pull your hair out all at the same time and you’ll cease to even notice because it becomes so normal to have no part of you left sacred. There will be points where you’ll walk into a room and that little human’s face will light up with the biggest smile ever and your heart will just about explode and there will be points when you legitimately consider tossing that little human out the window just so you can have a moment of silence. If you’re already a parent, you’ve had millions of these moments already and none of this is new to you, but to those of you who have yet to become parents it is so hard to imagine your life being taken over by a person who is the size of a cat.

 

All my life people have been telling me that parenting is worth it. Sometimes I question if that’s really true–like the moments I need to go hide in the closet. It’s okay. Go hide in the closet with a glass a wine and pretend you’re not home. Once upon a time I might have thought that meant I failed as a mom, but being a good parent means taking care of yourself as well as your baby. If you’re frazzled and haven’t showered in a week and can’t get yourself together enough to go to the store and buy food for your family, you’re not going to be able to do much for either your husband or your kids. But hey–sometimes that’s the reality of parenting! Responsibility is one thing; killing yourself in a vain attempt to do everything is another. We all have priorities and let’s be real–sometimes it is not showering. But today if you’re going insane, go hang out in the closet for awhile. Keep it dark. Keep it as quiet as is possible in a house with kids. There’s no shame in taking some time to keep yourself sane.

Here’s to sanity! (And election day finally having come and gone–can I get an amen?!)