Lost My Mind

I had the worst day today. It was actually a pretty good day up until the end of the night when I finally lost it. The climax of the night included an argument with Jarod and ended with me huddled up in fetal position crying into his shoulder as he comforted me. I was exhausted from life and everything that’s been going on.

I parent and take care of the kids by myself for the vast majority of the time. A few months ago, Jarod was promoted to Lead, which is equivocal to a supervisor, which means more responsibilities and very, very long hours. It’s not usual for him to work an eleven or twelve hour day and it’s very unusual for him to have a day, let alone a weekend, off. We have an agreement that works for us. He works crazy long hours at work and I do, quite literally, everything else involved in managing a household with kids.

My life is already filled with lots of hectic business but lately there seems to be tons and tons more going on.

We literally ran out the door that morning because we thought she was going to pass and we needed to say good-bye.

The other week my Lola, aka grandma, was admitted in the ICU, intensive care unit, and stayed at the hospital for a week. I spent those day either at the hospital, making dinner and sometimes lunch to bring to the hospital and driving my mom to her house and then back to the hospital to take care of a few things as her car just happened to stop working at the best possible time. Thankfully my Lola made it just fine and was discharged but that whole week my home was ignored, the laundry piled up, the bathrooms looked like a poop-bomb exploded and the carpet rose about a quarter of an inch from it’s collection of dirt and crumbs. I have a hard enough time keeping up with a regular average day with the kids that at that point I felt beyond swamped.

The boys, Aiden and Tristen, the first night in their big boy beds.

The kids are always a lot of work but even more so lately. Tristen has had some kind of bug for the last week that has created a very demanding and crying creature. I desperately hope this new and “improved” Tristen is merely the result of an illness and not the start of, dare I say, the terrible two’s. I fear what I know is more likely the case: the cold will pass but this demanding, crying creature-of-a-thing will remain.

I know I joke about how annoying it is and it really is so annoying but I understand that he’s just becoming a toddler. He’s moving out of the sweet baby phase that will happily let you “baby” him and into the independent “I WANT to do it, I NEED to do it my way even though I’m going to make the biggest mess in the world and it will take me an hour to do something that would take five minutes if you did it” phase. It’s a natural progression in his growth. I understand that. I get it but ughh, such bad timing.

Our baby, Aaliyanna.

Ali has, also, caught something and although she hasn’t been crying and demanding like said-creature above; she is spitting up her formula more than usual, which means more outfit changes, which equals more laundry of which I‘m still behind on. But the worst part about it is that she just looks so sad that I want to just hold her all day because I miss her usual incredibly happy self.

Aiden, our only healthy and sick-free kid, is killing me. Granted, I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve spent less one-on-one time with him and he hasn’t had the ability to play and run around like usual. He’s an active boy and I know he needs these things, which hasn’t been allotted for lately so I’ll take part of the blame for what I’m about to say. But lately, I’ve become convinced that God gave me him so I could learn patience. The terrible two’s and horrible three’s were nothing compared to what he does to me mentally. His favorite form of communication is whining and I can honestly say that I would rather hear nails screeching along a chalkboard all day long than five minutes of his whiny voice. I hate whining with a deep passion. In addition, he loves to have “discussions” now and if you tell him to stop doing something like jumping off the couch he will respond, “I not jumping. I just flying.” SMH.

As a parent that wants to foster and encourage his imagination, confidence and overall well-being, I’m at a loss on how to respond to him sometimes. I will admit that sometimes I would like to grab him at the collar with both hands, shake him up a bit and say inappropriate things that a good mother and a good person would never say (and maybe not even think).

So that’s been my life lately. Overall, I think I handle our family, kids and everything else extremely well but tonight, ohh my. Tonight we came home an hour and a half later than the time they’re usually in bed, which is always a recipe for a horrible, horrible situation. Then their whining and crying escalated (as it had already been going on for awhile) and I finally came to a point where I couldn’t take it emotionally and mentally. The end result: me crying like a baby.

This whole parenting business is extremely hard. I can’t imagine doing it all by myself. I can’t imagine doing it without someone who after having an argument with has the kindness to hold me and comfort my tears.

Today was a horrible day; I briefly, quite literally, lost my mind.

But tomorrow will be a better day. Ohh, dear God, pleeease be a better day.