I am good people.  I am.  At least I try to be.  I attempt to live my life thinking of others first, taking as good care of my children and I know how, and making sure my husband knows I appreciate him.  In fact, if you ask me, I am darn near perfect in all that I do.

Except when I am imperfect.

And there is nothing like a bad day to point out imperfections until I just can’t stand it anymore.

Yesterday, for instance, was a bad day!

Let’s start with a common theme that leads to my bad days.

I got no sleep night before last.  And by no sleep, I literally mean, no sleep.  I think I fell asleep for a half hour here or a half hour there, so maybe, over the course of an 8 hour attempt, an hour and a half.  And it was not consecutive.

I can blame Katie – who I think has Restless Leg Syndrome – or at least is battling some serious growing pains, and blessed me with her presence at least 5 times overnight.  I can scold Sarah for, only a week after having milk taken away at night, still wakes every two hours to ask for some.  I have to get up and rub her back for her to relax and go back down.  And I can shake my head at Megan, who keeps kicking the blanket off of herself – a habit she has tortured me with since the day she was born, for being up 4 times, complaining of being cold.

I could berate myself for being up too late on my computer, a habit that seems to get later and later every night.  Or I can call out my husband who, at 11:30 pm, told me that if I went to bed, they would too.

Or, I could be really honest with myself and admit that it is all me.  That my lack of schedule and consistency causes my girls to disrespect bedtime, a topic well discussed here, and that I, myself need to be an adult and just go to bed at a decent time.

Despite all of this, I am still a good person.  Not necessarily the best producer of bedtime success, but a good person.

I, as you can imagine, woke up – and by woke up I mean crawled out of the bed that I just put my head down in – in a foul mood.  I had no patience, no desire to function, and no motivation to find any.  I told myself  I would catch up tonight and went to tend to my three children in various stages of waking up.

Megan was mad because she wet out of her diaper in her crib.  Katie was mad because she was tired.  And Sarah was in high spirits, ready to go to school!  But still tired.

I got them up, dressed, lunches packed and in the car before 8:30 am.  No easy task.  I arrived at their school at 8:43 am.  Plenty of time to drop them and get to my job at the church, in the daycare center, by 9 am.

And then Katie, who begs daily to go to school and has not cried at school since her very first days last year, threw a yelling, crying, screaming, horrible tantrum, right in the hallway for all to see.  I could not get her to go in, and after fighting her for a very long time, I finally left my first born, crying with hands outreached in her teacher’s arms so I could go to work.

I felt like dirt.

And now I was 30 minutes late for work.

I felt like dirt under poop.

I felt behind all day.  It was a stressed out, worried about Katie, couldn’t catch my breath, kind of day.  The kinds of days where I self examine and take it all on my shoulders.  Because I am the mom, the worker, and the responsible party for all involved in my life.

I picked the girls up from school after work.  Sarah was still napping and had to be woken several times before she got up – chalk one more up for guilt mommy feelings because she is so tired – and Katie’s teacher told me she was so tired, she was bumping into chairs all day.  Hanging my head in shame, fighting back tears, I headed home with my brood.

I felt like dirt under poop that had been stepped in.

I was strict about bedtime last night.  Putting them all to bed at 6:30 pm.  At 8:30 pm, I think the last one finally fell asleep.  And so did I.

Feeling less like a good person and more like a bad mother.

But, I know that bad days happen to good people.  And I am a good people.  And today is another day to get it right.

Because that is what I do.

And I am good at what I do!