Stone Fox's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

This post is a complete downer, so if you are looking for my usual witty repartee, skip this.

This is not a 'look at me blog about how un-perfect I am, but with a happy ending' post, either. I almost don't want to Publish, but if I'm going to call this a "journal" it should have the ugly parts, too.

This is me as a parent today: EPIC FAIL.

Why? How could this happen? Where did it go so, so wrong?

I got up this morning after a solid 8 hours of sleep, which hasn't happened for a while, usually one of the kids, or my bladder, is waking me up at least once a night.

About an hour after my 8 hours of sleep, I was dozing on the couch. Big kids were playing on the deck; Little Dude was rolling around on the floor. Since I was only resting my eyes, I was able to get up every few minutes and check on the big kids to make sure they weren't trying to kill each other or burn down the house.

Then I fell asleep.

Then I woke up to a faceful of Spray 'N Wash.

My son had somehow reached the top shelf of our bathroom towel rack (I am mystified as to how he did this. The shelf is almost 6 feet tall and there was no chair or stool in the bathroom. The shelving unit would never support his weight and isn't bolted to the wall) and handed his sister a bottle of Comet bathroom spray and got himself a bottle of Spray 'N Wash. Princess, I think, just carried her bottle around. The Hurricane proceeded to spray numerous different things, including the front of the dryer, and some walls, the baby's high chair tray, and my laptop. Once he started spraying the dog, she came and sat next to where I was asleep.

Asleep. No, I didn't wake up while my son went willy-nilly through three different rooms in the house randomly spraying stuff.

I knew instantly, instantly, what that smell was. I did what any parent would do when being woken up by a faceful of laundry cleaner: I freaked out. I had a complete and total meltdown. I ran from child to child to check their breath and their eyes and see who was crying and then I was crying. And I was yelling. As ashamed as I am to admit this, I scared my Hurricane. I made him fear me. I sent him to his room while I checked and double checked little kids and (thank God!!!) everyone was okay. I gave the dog a bath, and checked her eyes, and she was okay, too. I went to my oldest son's room and sat on his bed and cried while I explained how dangerous chemicals are, how they could make little kids blind, or sick, or dead. I went over, again and again, how important it is to stay out of stuff that he knows is only for grown-ups .

I want to throw up when I think about what could have happened. I'm still scared when I think about how close I came to rushing my daughter to emerg because she swallowed some Comet, or my baby losing his sight because he got stain remover in his eyes. I am swallowed up in the guilt, because I never, ever, should have allowed myself to fall asleep.

After our chat, the Hurricane and I came downstairs, and I began to clean up the random sprays of stain remover and check kids again and again for signs of poisoning. As I come around the corner into the kitchen, I see:

my Hurricane standing

on the counter

digging in the medicine cupboard.

Words cannot explain. Words. Cannot. Explain. There is no word to describe the sensation of my patience and sanity snapping. I did not yell. I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs. Again, I am ashamed to admit, I scared a little kid. My little boy.

But I did not hit. I almost did. I almost went to a dark place, but I didn't. I sat down on the floor and cried really, really hard. My boy ran off to his room.

What does everyone with a vagina do when lying on the floor of her kitchen sobbing? I called my best friend, Doreen. I babbled incoherently about being at the end of my rope, not knowing what to do, how did a 4 year old break me, I can't do this, what am I doing wrong, I did things the way you're supposed to and put chemicals and medicines up really high and how did he get into them, I am a terrible mother and a lousy human being, etc.. She let me run out of steam, and then said, "Call Social Services. They are not going to take your kids away. They will tell you where to get help."

So I did. I told the social worker that my child seems to have some kind of internal message that tells him he is allowed to give himself permission to do whatever he wants; that he does not have to follow rules at home. The social worker gave me some resources. I will do whatever they want, I will try whatever they have. I thought the Hurricane and I were figuring things out, but we are not.

Right now, I look back at today and I'm still beating myself up. I am so eternally grateful that today did not have a tragic result. I will go to bed and when I wake up tomorrow, today will be all over. I will not forget, but I will move on.

Fates, I know that was my one free one.