what is failure?

This is what failure looks like for me this morning. Kyle awoke with the alarm to pick up Charlie from his cub scout campout. The kids started waking and coming into my room asking me to get up shortly thereafter, and met the typical lack-of-response. As the minutes turned to hours, conflicts ensued, whining became more shrill and varied in form, and hunger pangs heightened everyone's discomfort. Kyle returned home, but is still so weak and exhausted with Dengue that he collapsed on the bed. Ellie desperately pleaded for us to get up and help make breakfast. Nothing.

The sad truth is that the more the kids need me in the morning, the less I want to get up. Facing even a pleasant morning feels laborious, but if it's fraught with screaming, whining, messes, and hunger strikes, leaving my warm bed sounds like a supreme masochistic feat, and one requiring the discipline and resolve I've just never had before 10am.

The saddest part to this morning's tale is that I stayed up late last night decorating the whole house with leprechaunish mischief. Our resources are low here, but I gathered together everything green in the house and strung it from ceilings, staircase railings, and door frames, all employing one single strand of green yarn (that was Ellie's entire ball of yarn). I scribbled notes on mirrors and piano keys in washable green marker, overturned chairs, and left Erik's fiddle out with a bowl of green peas in its place. It's not my grandest display, but it required a grand effort still. This is particularly so because I was in the process of falling asleep when I remembered I needed to decorate. Actually yesterday was St. Patrick's Day but I rather forgot about it and discovered Erik crying the next morning that the leprechauns hadn't visited. Since it was before 10am, this initially vexed me, but by the time 10pm rolled around, I was looking forward to mischief-making.

Anyway, all this increases the pathetic nature of this morning's dynamic. I wasn't even awake to witness their discovery and delight in my effort. By the time I rolled myself off the bed, they were over it and on to being cranky and tearful about everything. Mom fail.

But is it? How can a mother who remembered her kids like leprechauns at 11:30pm at night while trying to fall asleep so she hoists herself out of bed and decks out the house until 1am really be a failure? And yet this morning, I was completely and utterly a failure as a mother, and I can't have a redo there. I just plain missed the magical moments I worked hard to create. Kyle at least has Dengue to blame for his sluggishness. I only have selfishness.

I want to change, I think I really do. How, though? Change in terms of circumstances outside of my control? I can handle that. Indeed it hardly phases me. Change in terms of core character traits is a different beast altogether.