he's a cutie patooty right?
yeah, I know.
but don't be fooled.
he's doing his very best to push me over the edge to mental illness.
with the help of his big sisters of course.
Seriously--you moms out there--how do you do it?
beware,
the rest of this post consists of rantings of an on-the-verge psychopath. (with lots of run-on sentences)
you were warned.
and you can only read beyond this point if you promise not to judge me.
I'm pretty sure that when I was pregnant with our third child all the moms I talked to said that 3 was just soo hard (since dad and mom are finally outnumbered by the kids) and that I'd better be prepared for what I was in for.
Then I had Brynn--maybe the most angelic baby ever. seriously EVER.
So I thought ...
"Hey, three's not so bad--lets have another..."
and WHAM
Here I am six months after the birth of our fourth, on the verge of hysteria cause of the sheer exhaustion of it all.
with no end in sight.
I wasn't always like this:
Where my old self would see a mess, rub hands together and get started picking things up,
the new self looks around hopelessly, grabs a carton of ice cream and a spoon and retreats back to the bedroom. I don't even really like ice cream.
Where my old self would see a bored child, pull out the puzzles, or the paper and scissors and create something fun to do,
the new self tells them to "knock it off, turn the movie on again and stop whining."
Where my old self is sympathetic to a child crying,
the new self turns on the other children demanding answers to the cause and who's at fault and "how many times do I have to tell you not to climb on that?--you asked for it!"
Where my old self looked forward to doing stuff together as a family,
the new self wonders multiple times a day really how bad it would be to leave the kids home for 'just a little while' by themselves so she could go out and be alone for a bit. Cause having a six and four year old in charge together is practically as good as having a 10 year old babysitter right?
Where my old self got online and read books because she enjoyed it,
the new self gets online multiple times every day, plays mindless ipad games continuously, or obsessively reads (like an entire series in a week) in an attempt to escape the crazy chaotic thing she calls her life.
Where my old self looked forward to her future,
the new self sees a never-ending pile of laundry, dishes, bills to pay, lawns to mow, snot to wipe, interrupted nights, cleaning up after they "clean up", paying babysitters for dates that don't quite give enough of a break, poopy diapers, meal making, climbing on furniture, enforcing rules, bedtimes, whining about what I don't do or what I don't do right, public outbursts, taking 45 minutes longer to get out to the car than you'd expect, cleaning bathrooms, stepping on toys, having my stuff broken and/or ruined, being interrupted, and did I mention laundry?
I know.
It's never always like that.
But some days it feels like it is.
And maybe the difference between 3 kids and 4 for me is:
When I had 3 kids I used to have more days of the week where I was my old self.
So the motivated and optimistic part of me was still in power.
Now with 4 kids, I think there are more days of my week I feel like it is hopeless to even try.
and I feel like even ONE MORE THING is added to my plate (no matter how simple or mundane or trivial) that I might just snap and become that person I swore I never would be.
The mom who despised her kids, and her house, and her life.
sooo...
if this isn't the most depressing post on the planet--I don't know what is.
Sometimes I just need to vent--in public. Where I can be as sarcastic as I want and nobody is there to stop me. :)
Because seriously-- and I really do mean this -- I think sarcasm has saved me so far.
That and friends, family and the gospel.
Let's see how much longer I can hold out.
I'm taking bets.
