Forced Perspective

Have you ever seen those pictures with Forced Perspective? The pictures are essentially just an optical illusion, but nevertheless, the concept still works. They look like this:

I am giving myself a lesson in forced perspective.  I have felt like I have been in the weeds for the past couple of days and I am having a hard time pulling myself out.  I can't change what is around me, but I need to see things differently. 

Yesterday, the three-footer lost something that I never should have let her take with her anyway.  It wasn't a big deal, but she would not help me look for it.  The conversation went something like this...

Me:  Three-footer, where did you put it? 

Three-footer: No

Me:  Then you know you aren't going to get it back, right?  It's lost, do you understand?

Three-footer:  I miss my card...I want my card...I.want.my.card.

Put that conversation, if you can call it that, on repeat and that was our evening.  It was not even a real toy.  It was a fake credit card on a Navy lanyard.  She forgot about it eventually, but it really bothered me.  You lost something that daddy gave you.  Daddy who is not here and is not going to be here for a a long time.  Granted, it was only a lanyard and is something that can be replaced.  In my head, it was a huge deal.  It's a lanyard for fuck's sake.  Seriously, what is the big deal?  Mommy fail.

Enter the Toothless Wonder.  She thinks it is perfectly acceptable to have a rave from 12:45 - 3:30 a.m.  A rave where you scream unconsolably at the top of your lungs.  She has always been a bad sleeper and has zero self-soothe skills.  I did not handle the incessant screaming very well, and I was heavily channeling one of my favorite books.

Somewhere around 2:30 a.m., I hit my wall.  I put TW downstairs in a playpen so she would, hopefully, not wake up the neighbor or her sister.  I went upstairs and watched part of an episode of Sex and the City that I have seen one million times.  I watched it and I sobbed.  And I sobbed.  And I sobbed.  How dare I get upset at a toddler for losing something that isn't even worth anything? How dare I get upset that a baby will not stop screaming?  I was angry at myself for how I reacted to everything.  Mommy fail.

So, it is what it is.  I lost touch with what was important and I had a phenomenal mommy fail day.  Here's to hoping I can change my perspective.  This is also known in Navy spouse land as "suck it the fuck up."  Perhaps that will be my new mantra.

Thanks for reading.

LL