I've been feeling rather bi-polar lately. You know, up and down, like an insane teeter-tooter on over drive. That's why if you call me on the phone after a "life sucks" blog post, you often get "oh everything's really fine, I over reacted" and then the next day I'm back to "life sucks."
The kids... Have.Been.Driving.Me.Insane. I don't know if the patience well has been completely drained or what but we're all having a hard time getting along most of the time. And often I'm so frustrated because I try to do something nice and then all they do is complain. It's what I call "I give them the moon and they whine they didn't get the stars as well" syndrome. It's so hard to make the extra effort to be nice if in the end all I get is grumpy kids no matter what I do. If I'm going to get the same complaints after taking them to the park and ordering pizza for dinner as I would locking them in their rooms and feeding them bread & water*, what's the point?
* (Actually have not locked them in the rooms with bread & water. Although it's very tempting.)
I'm just worn out. We've been having the same fights over and over. Why do they completely destroy the kitchen at every meal? Why do they drop their things everywhere? Why can't they do one thing when that's the only thing I've asked of them? (i.e. "Emily go brush your hair, we're leaving." She wanders off to get a book. "Emily, brush your hair." She starts putting on her shoes. "Emily! Why haven't you brushed your hair!?!?" "What Mom? Oh, I forgot.")
The worst part is I don't think there's an answer for this. How do I make this easier? Honestly for the first time in my life, I'm overwhelmed at having 5 children. I swear it's becoming harder. There are more outside influences, more demands, just more. It's no longer playing in our yard, it's "can we ride our bikes there? Can we invite so-and-so over? Can I play at her house?" It's not watching Blue Clues on Nick Jr., it's playing the Wii, the Gameboys, the computer, and watching "High School Musical." It's not one child in preschool and the others taking a nap at home, it's now four classrooms with one child in hockey, three in soccer, and three in scouts. And I have one more (Kelly) who will up all those numbers next year.
The worst part of being overwhelmed is that well, I'm overwhelmed. The little things get blown out of proportion. Emily didn't brush her hair when I asked, big deal. But when it's on top of us being late to hockey because Zach's goofing around on the computer and Kyle can't find his Gameboy and Ally's complaining she doesn't want to go and Kelly wants to change her clothes right now and the breakfast dishes are still on the table and I'm tripping over Zach's trombone after I asked him a dozen times to move it... It makes me want to not do anything. And then by not doing anything, the little things begin to become big things, the laundry basket overflows, the carpets become disgusting, stuff piles up. More overwhelming.
Can we hurry back to the "oh everything's really fine, I over reacted" part now?
All Content at katiefleck.com is Copyright 2003-2008 by Katie Fleck, All Rights Reserved.
