“I feel like I can’t do this,” I sobbed into the phone. My husband encouraged me and reminded me that I can do it, even though it is hard and totally sucks. And he just sat with me for a little while on the phone. We weren’t saying all too much, just the comment here and there. But he was being here with me, supporting me when I needed it most. Even though he couldn’t support me how either of us would have preferred, he could and did give some time and attention to help me to settle myself and to breathe smoothly again.
And so I got myself and the baby to Target to figure out about car seats. Of course, once there, we ended up having about five minutes of greatness followed by a really, really hard time during which all she wanted to do was run around on her own. She kept pulling stuff off of shelves, moving them to other shelves, running away from me if I ever showed any sign of trying to grab her. Fortunately, she was mostly just interested in plastic bottles and baby toys, especially the six-pack plastic bottles of Pediasure, or whatever it’s called, and a fake keys ice teether toy. So, I had to let her move about eight packs of Pediasure back and forth across the aisle in order to be able actually to focus and learn anything about the car seats.
(Of course, an employee randomly was walking through at one point and gave me a really nasty and judgmental time about how the baby was clearly going to break something dangerous and wasn’t I worried about her safety???? Yes, on the aisle packed with plastic bottle and plastic pouches of food. I’m very worried she might break…… Uhm, nothing at all on this aisle, actually. Even though I’m keeping her within view and am keeping an eye on her, she must certainly be about to find some glass and shatter it in the baby department. Most definitely. Yup. [Don’t worry, I had already had two breakdowns at home and barely even made it to the store, and had been crying off and on at the store because of how hard it was just to look at the effing car seats. She got a very angry yet honest response from me when I asked her to stop criticizing me, as it had already been a very hard day for me, and the baby was perfectly safe as she was. The employee was nasty back to me. So, then my daughter got to scream for five minutes while I restrained her for the employee’s benefit until the employee left. Then I stopped caring quite so much about whether my daughter pulled things off the shelf, because that entire interaction had been unnecessary and mean and accomplished nothing but making me hate another person’s behavior.])
Anyway, my daughter continued some of her horrible behavior, but also decided to be cute for a bit and sit on the car seats and test them out with me. She also tried to join another family at one point, even asking the lady to pick her up and hold her.
But I eventually made it through all the car seats they had and tested well enough what I had wanted to test in person.
So. I am beyond touched out, emotionally seared, and entirely miserable. Let’s see if she’ll let me go to sleep anytime soon, or sleep much tonight. Today has been a day of hating being a mom. Genuine misery and feelings of intense inadequacy.
God, heal me, please, and help me. Keep us safe and make us well. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2026
hannah ananas 