This is the current situation.

I put my four-year-old in timeout on the patio, and she’s been chanting for over 5 minutes, for all the neighbors to hear, “meany-head mommy.”

I know timeouts don’t work.

I know I’m supposed to do a time-in.

But I needed a timeout, and since my other two eLearning kids needed me, the tiny tyke was sent out to the patio instead of me taking myself out there.

What began it all, you ask?

Nothing substantial. She wasn’t listening to my instructions, and I was getting impatient with her.

She was already getting impatient with me for tending to household chores and her siblings (as needed) instead of playing with her.

She started making mean faces at me and gritting her teeth, and so I walked away, so I wouldn’t end up doing the same back at her.

I know what you’re thinking.

She’s four.

Your thirty-four.

Why would you even have to control yourself from making mean faces or getting riled up by someone thirty years younger?

But it happens, people.

Sometimes my kids act in a way that really frustrates me, and it causes me to act in the way they just did that frustrated me.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

No wonder these monkeys are a part of my circus.

As the mama in the family, I hold a critical job of keeping this family train running and on course and keeping all its passengers safe and happy, and I’ve just got to tell you, this sh*t is hard.

And throw in a pandemic, some e-learning, so much together-time, less outings and fewer visits with friends, and, well, it’s getting really effing monotonous.

What I’m trying to remember, every morning and every night and every couple of hours or minutes when I need a self-pep talk - in addition to the fact that I’m hashtag blessed — is that we’re all going to make mistakes.

We’re each going to fudge up.

Conversations.

Interactions.

With our work.

With our words.

And with our behavior.

But it’s how we bounce back from those gaffes with more love and understanding for each other that truly matters.

I’m an overwhelmed,

anxious,

type-A,

easily stir-crazed, hothead raising three of the same,

and if these adorably exhausting mini-mes and I are going to make it through this pandemic in one piece and with all our marbles in tact,

we’ve got to give each other plenty of grace and hugs

even when we least deserve it.