Category: Life in general

Last night, I lost it with my kids.

It was past bedtime, way past, and yet no one was sleeping.  The routines we had set up from the time they were wee little babies, the ones that worked so well and gave me evenings to myself, got lost somewhere. 

Somewhere between the illnesses and the long work hours, the routine morphed into something unrecognizable.  And they push, push, push until it is something more like child wrangling than a bedtime routine.

I screamed at them.  I cried.  I told them that I just could not listen to another whine word out of their mouths.  I called them ungrateful and asked them how they had turned into children I didn’t recognize.

They got quiet.  

And I wondered how the hell we got Here.  To this moment in time when I’m yelling at my children instead of trying to find a solution that fixes the problem. 

I wondered how I had turned into a parent I didn’t recognize. 

My husband came home after yet another 14 hour work day, and walked right into the hornet’s nest that was me having a grown-up temper tantrum.  Because, let’s be honest, that’s exactly what it was. 

We got the kids to bed.  I apologized to them for yelling, and for saying things that were unkind.  For losing my temper.  And they apologized for not listening, for pushing buttons, for acting out. 

We all promised to try harder to have patience and be kind to one another.

Stress does things to people.  I think it causes certain character traits to become stronger, and others to fade.  It’s fight or flight, all the time.  Our bodies aren’t meant to live this way.

We are making changes.  Setting new limits, creating new boundaries – and not just for the kids. 

We are Here, but we are getting There. 

Slowly, but surely.  Together.

I wrote an emotional post earlier, and without even editing it or linking to things I’d mentioned, I published and left the house.

Now that I’m back, I unpublished.  It was a huge woe-is-me whine fest and I’m embarrassed that I put it out there for anyone to see.

Here’s the thing. 

I struggle.  We all do.  Every single one of us has our own personal battles.

But I am so tired of being overwhelmed.  I need to make real, concrete changes rather than complaining.  Sure, it might make me feel better for a little while, but the same issues pop up time after time, and they will continue to surface unless I make alterations in the way I’m doing things.

Sometimes life rips people’s hopes and dreams right out from underneath them.  There are dreams that should never, ever be forgotten.  Others need to be altered, put on hold, or left behind.

Life is so short, I don’t want to spend time being miserable.  Not when I have so much to be happy about.  I don’t want to look back on my life, 20 years from now, and regret the time I spent being sad.

So I will change my perspective.  I will create new dreams, and try harder to take things as they come. 

In the end, even though my old dreams were never realized, I’m so lucky to have had them in the first place.

We’re running on fumes around here. 

The Rental.  It’s almost done.  The last -my husband better not even think about buying another condemned crack house for at least a year- house is nearly finished.  I took some almost-finished photos today, and hope to post some before-and-after shots for your enjoyment, sometime soon.

Don’t hold your breath, though.

The Puppies.  Nine of ten have gone to their new homes, and I am relieved.  Taking care of puppies is a lot of work.  But I’m also inexplicably sad.  The house feels empty and quiet.  Their mom keeps digging under the fence to go looking for her puppies.  I look into her eyes, and I wonder whether I’m cut out for this business.

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The Work.  Owning and running a small business, especially in a flailing economy, is a lot of flipping work.  There aren’t pee-ons to do the crap jobs, you can’t even think about quitting, and people tend to push and shove and demand a mile when you offer an inch.

So, what happens when you want to go on vacation, or you get sick, or you just want to have an uninterrupted dinner on occasion?  Well, you pretty much don’t take family vacations, you consult with clients between bouts of diarrhea, and you end up eating dinner three hours later than you intended.  Every. single. time.

The Blogs.  I love this space, and I have so many unwritten posts floating around in my head.  But there is no time to write, to cultivate, or to read the blogs I love.  I am creating a corn allergy blog with a friend, something I’m incredibly passionate about.  But I refuse to publish sub-par content on something so important, and so it sits, neglected but full of potential.

The Kids.  When life is going by at 100 miles per hour, I don’t give my kids the kind of attention I think they deserve.  Their needs get met.  They eat meals on tv trays.  Baths are every other day.  Bedtimes get later and later.  Time for creative play and cuddling go out the window, and we all feel the loss.

When finally I get them into their beds, they ask me to stay.  I lay, quietly, trying to calm my breathing so that they will relax and fall asleep.  They stall.  Ask for water; declare the need to potty; fidget.

Time passes.  I peek over to see if their eyes are truly closed, and am amazed to discover I can see their futures there in the dark, etched into their sleeping faces.

They are taller and stronger and more capable than they were yesterday.

Soon it will be tomorrow, which will become next week.  Before I can blink my eyes, they will celebrate birthdays; lose teeth; refuse to hold my hand.

The list of a million things I need to accomplish before the sun rises over the mountains sits on my desk; their eyelashes rest gently on their smooth cheeks.

I slip into the space between them, and quickly fall into a peaceful sleep.