By Stacy Bronec
@stacybronec

This is my first summer as a mom of three, and I feel like I’m failing.

The smell of burnt hamburger fills the room, intensified by my baby’s sobs from the playmat on the floor. My shoulders rise; the tension is palpable.

“I know, Nora, we’re past your naptime. I’m sorry,” I say, but her crying is only getting louder.  

“Allie, can you please talk to Nora?” I beg my nearly four-year-old. “I’m almost ready; then we’ll take dinner out to Dad and the guys in the field, okay?”

“Hey, No-yah,” Allie croons as she kneels beside her baby sister. She starts making silly faces at Nora as I turn back toward the stove. Then, realizing how big the flames are on my new gas range, I turn down the knob.

I spoon the slightly burned taco meat into each flour tortilla, the steam rising from the green Dutch oven with each scoop. Allie abandons her big sister duty to watch me and climbs up the off-white drawers—the black handles perfect ladders for her tiny bare feet. 

Nora’s crying continues, so I walk to the front door and grab her car seat. After placing it on the floor beside the stove, I pick her up and snuggle her to my chest.

“I’m sorry, Nora,” I whisper in her ear while rubbing her back. Then, I lower her into the car seat and buckle her in.

“Allie, can you get her pacifier from my room, please?”

Allie jumps from the counter, her long dark hair bouncing down her back. I continue putting together the tacos, rocking the seat with my foot. A bead of sweat trickles down my face, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. The blistering August heat combined with the gas range and the witching hour makes the late afternoons nearly unbearable.

“Here you go, baby,” says Allie, as she shoves the pacifier into Nora’s mouth.

Nora begins to rapidly suck the pink owl WubbaNub while rubbing her eyes. Turning back to the stove, my shoulders drop, and I let out a sigh. I tear off a sheet of aluminum foil, covering the last plate of tacos, and Nora begins to scream again. Grabbing the car seat handle with one hand, in a last attempt to calm her, I begin to swing it back and forward quickly. Soon, I realize she isn’t making any noise—the kind of quiet that scares me rather than comforts. Looking down, she is bright red, and her cries have taken her breath away. Her eyes scrunch closed—then she lets out a huge wail.

“I’m so sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean to scare you!” Immediately, I unbuckle the straps and pull her out of the seat. Then, with her clutched to my chest, I gently bounce her, continuing to whisper my apologies into her ear.

Despite my wish to keep holding Nora, I strap her back in the car seat.

Allie stands by the coat rack at the door, silent, with her eyes locked onto me and her sister. Looking down at her feet, I see she has on her pink cowgirl boots. “You ready? I ask.

“Yup, I got my boots on!” she says.

Then, I load the girls and all the food into the pickup, and we take off down the road.

“Mom, does she think you’re a monster?” Allie asks, her legs dangling below the seat, swinging back and forth. Her gaze fixed out the window.

My eyes are focused on the gravel road, shoulders still tense. “What?” I ask.

“She thinks you’re a monster,” Allie states, her legs still swinging.

“Who does?” I ask, looking at her through the rear view mirror.

“Nora,” she says, pointedly.

“I don’t think so,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, my hands still firm on the wheel.

Allie stares out the window, watching the harvested fields pass by. Her interest in the conversation is gone. I look at the clock, thinking Nora should be in bed sleeping, not just napping in the back seat. But I picture the guys in the field with hours of seeding ahead of them, their packed lunches long gone. I know they need dinner.

I hit the brake to ease into the field, and then it clicks.

Monster. 

She wonders if Nora thinks I’m a monster because I said, “I’m sorry I scared you.”

***

Later that week, Allie, a constant at my side, is on the floor next to me while I change Nora’s diaper.

“Stop putting your feet on your sister’s head!” I yell. It’s nearly 8 o’clock, and I’ve been up since 5 a.m; with multiple wake-ups with Nora the night before. “How many times have I asked you not to do that?” Allie drops her head, her bottom lip sticking out.

I strap Nora’s diaper on, and her gray eyes focus on me, unfazed by my outburst.

Allie’s face falls from my reprimand. I open my mouth, but the apology catches in my throat.

After I finish getting Nora’s jammies on, I swaddle her and kiss her on the cheek. “Night, night,” I say, placing a pacifier in her mouth as I lay her down in the crib.

***

A few months later, we are in another busy season on the farm, and I am doing most of the bedtime routines alone. Between the hours of five to seven o’clock, the kids find extra energy, and it seems to explode out of them. I, on the other hand, am exhausted. Since 5 a.m., I have answered their needs all day. I don’t have much of myself left to give.

“Mom! I’m not tired!” Rhett, my oldest child, yells from his bed, minutes after I have tucked them in.

“Why do you do this to me every night?” I yell down the hall. Then I toss the blanket off my lap, having already settled onto the couch.

For years, I’ve hoped raising my voice would make them listen and learn. But it hasn’t. I think back to last summer when Allie wondered if Nora thought I was a monster. Is it because Allie and Rhett sometimes see me—with my voice raised and eyes glaring over them—as a monster?

“Mom, I have to tell you something,” Rhett says after I open their door. “You hurt my feelings earlier when you got mad.”

“You guys just push my buttons at bedtime,” I utter, embarrassed at my excuse. My mind replays the threats and yells to “Go to sleep!” when I closed their bedroom door minutes earlier.

“Mom, you should say you’re sorry. How come you never apologize?” he calmly asks, peering over the edge of his bunk bed.

My head drops, and I feel my cheeks flame.

When they were babies, it was easy to apologize because, honestly, I wasn’t at fault. My apologies flow freely with Nora, just like they did when the big kids were babies. When she has to wait a few minutes to eat, or her diaper needs to be changed, or when she falls learning to walk, I don’t hesitate to apologize.

Now, an apology is admitting I’ve done something wrong, confessing my inabilities and weaknesses to them.

And maybe more than that—it’s admitting it to myself. I withhold my apologies in the heat of the moment to justify my anger, blaming my outburst on their disobedience. By not apologizing, I can keep pointing the finger at them instead of taking responsibility for my actions.

Saying “I’m sorry” puts words to the guilt and shame that swirls in my head.

“You’re right,” I pause, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry I yelled and got mad at you.” I reach up and ruffle his too-long hair with my hand. “I’ll try and do better tomorrow, okay? It’s been a long day, and it’s hard when Dad isn’t home.” 

I walk out of their room, only to hear Nora crying from her crib. I pause, my hand clasped on her doorknob.

Someday, will she see me as a monster too?

Shaking my head at the thought, I turn the handle, “Hey, Nora,” I whisper. Immediately, her cries stop—my voice reassuring in the pitch-black room.

Picking her up, I think back to the final weeks of my pregnancy with her. I felt confident bringing home a third baby because I had done it twice before. Of course, I knew adding another baby to the family would be a challenge, but I knew what to expect.

What I didn’t anticipate was what a baby would teach me to better raise the two kids we already had.

She reminded me I do know how to apologize.

Guest essay written by Exhale member Stacy Bronec. Stacy is a farm wife, mom of three, and lover of baked goods. She and her husband, Rich, farm and ranch in the middle of nowhere Montana. When she's not taking meals to the field or cleaning grain from the dryer vent, she’s doing barre workouts in her kitchen, reading, or scribbling notes to turn into stories. She has been published on Coffee + Crumbs, Her View From Home, and Kindred Mom. Stacy is also on The Mom Hour contributor team. You can find her on Instagram or her website.