by Jess Connell · September 16, 2016

This might be the hardest part (for me) of having a big family.

It’s the part I didn’t really expect, because, prior to having kids, I always saw myself as an extrovert. A quite marked extrovert. Not only that, but I always liked being around kids. Loved it, in fact. Playing, wrestling, tickling, laughing, snuggling down to read a book, silly names… it’s not overstating it to say I was a killer, super-fun babysitter, back in the day.

So to (semi-regularly) find myself in the position of wanting to hunker down under the covers and hide… not just from my children, but from the world… has come as a surprise.

THE URGE TO HIDE

It comes on very suddenly. I feel overwhelmed. Panicky, almost.

Like I can’t.

How, I’ll ask myself in my overdramatic-angry-inner-voice, am I supposed to deal with THIS?

[The “this” changes, by the way. Sometimes it’s an absurdly-messy kitchen floor, a snarky teenage response that catches me off guard, an 18-month-old who just threw up down the fabric-mesh side of the pack and play, finding out that that basement that they said was “clean” yesterday is actually one step away from a Hoarders episode. That kind of “this.”]

What I want to do is HIDE.

RUN.

Let someone else deal with it. Make it stop. Yell. Belittle.

Whatever I have to do… to just NOT have to deal with it…

… but what I end up doing, most often, (well, sometimes I yell.)… but after I blow that short-fuse of yelling, what I mostly end up doing is dealing with it.

  • Call everyone to the kitchen and ask everyone to pitch in and “take 4 things that don’t belong on this floor and put them where they DO belong.” Then “so-and-so please grab the broom.” And “so-and-so, will you please go over to the shoe area and make sense of it?” and on and on. In the end, when I opt for this response, we work together on the problem that seemed impossible. And the problem that seemed impossible gets handled.
  • Or (maybe after blowing a gasket), I point out to the teen  why what he said was disrespectful, or wrong, and ask him to please rephrase it. And then he does, and I try to cultivate a heart that forgives fully and (heaven help me please help me) really LOVES him — ala 1 Corinthians 13 — without keeping a record of wrongs, and we move on with our day.
  • Or, someone (I don’t know who; it’s a blur in the corner of my eye) grabs some paper towels and I hold the still-puking toddler while he gurgles out the nastiest curdle-ish throw up I’ve ever seen, and someone else bolts for the clorox wipes, and my daughter holds out the grocery bag while I get the sleeper off of him and deposit it inside the bag, and somehow, despite being pregnant and about to gag the whole time, bit by bit, I get that nasty mess wiped up, and someone else gets the radioactive grocery-bagged sleeper into the wash, and someone else draws the bath water, and someone else throws out the garbage as soon as it’s all collected in there. Soon, the throw up is just a bad memory and a new prayer request (Lord, please don’t let anyone else get it.)

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