Why is it so hot? Why am I in this handbasket?!
The J-man has been on Spring Break for three weeks now, with one to go. It has been, for the most part, wretched. There has been so much crankiness in our house that I’m surprised it hasn’t split at the seams already. Maybe by this weekend!
Never before have we seen exactly how much he craves the routine of school. The sensory overload of, well, everything he sees, touches, eats, or hears has boggled my mind. I watch him struggle, and watch us struggle with him, and I feel overwhelmed. Tim feels overwhelmed. Dale Jr is still going with the flow, although he will occasionally look over at his big brother like, “Dude. Calm down!” The J-man, whose bedtime and morning routines have been stable for months, has suddenly needed to be dragged (literally) to the bathroom for teeth-brushing and shower, dragged back to his room for clothes, forced into his clothes… and then at night, carried/forced into taking meds and having teeth brushed, manhandled into pajamas… He bit me the other day on the finger so hard that I still have a blood blister 2 days later. He went a couple weeks where he ate nuggets so rarely we were concerned about his protein intake, but thankfully that seems to have subsided. No amount of brushing/joint compressions/smushing has seemed to help.
Of course, none of this is helped by the extended family’s illnesses/surgeries/dramas going on, and the fact that both Tim and I have been absolutely covered up in work. I’m leading a project right now, and I haven’t done that in a long time. Tim is frantically working to meet a deadline, but he can only get so much work in per day, because of having to be with the boys all the time. The house is a wreck, and we don’t have the energy to fix it, but because the house is a wreck, we feel even more stressed.
Tim and I talked last night in bed, and I told him something I had read recently on a blog. Someone said, “Nobody is coming to save you.” They were talking in terms of money, but also in terms of regular life.
I realized that lately, I’ve been reading fiction where there is ALWAYS someone there to “save” the main character. There is always some distant relative you’ve never met who dies (but because you never met, you don’t feel too bad) and leaves you a house, or a huge amount of money. Something relatively small that you were left by your elderly godfather is actually a rare item worth $80K. Or, suddenly a nanny appears who is able to care for your children AND clean the entire house with one hand tied behind her back, and you can afford her full-time. (We actually have someone who comes in for a few hours every couple of weeks, and we LOVE her. But we need more than a few hours!) Somehow, you stop eating because of stress, and look down at yourself and have magically lost 4 dress sizes.
I realized that I have been behaving like somebody was coming to save me. It’s not going to happen. I need to start acting like that.
Posts that hopefully are similar:
- Trying to Get Perspective
- When the Only Thing Routine is the Lack of Routine
- Our Last Trip to the Dentist – or That Thing I Haven’t Wanted to Talk About
- The Second Time Around – Having a Child Not in Therapy
- Out of the House and Temporarily Back to the ‘Real World’
- The 439 Stages of Grief
- Are You Smarter Than a Four-Year-Old?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent point about “nobody’s coming to save you”…BUT…
You (& Tim, too) need to be realistic and give yourself a bit more slack than normal until J goes back to school. You are, essentially, working an extra “job” (NOT that our children are jobs, that’s not what I mean!) while he is home. Are there places where you can streamline routines a little or even set them aside (for the house, maybe?) to give yourselves some breathing space? Can your cleaning person come a few EXTRA hours this week to help you “dig out?” Or maybe have take-out one or two nights instead of cooking, etc…
While it’s true no one is coming to save you, you need to make sure you don’t run yourself into the ground until you TRULY need to be rescued!
Seriously. I wonder every day why I’m not losing weight from all this stress
You’re stronger than you think, and you CAN do this. Some days you may have to fake it ’til you make it, but you will, and J-Man will thank you for it.
Hey Niksmom- our person who comes in does childcare. If only Dale Jr is here, she will do some cleaning while he naps, but with both kids, there just isn’t time to clean, especially since Dale Jr is still in his “if it’s disgusting or dangerous, I’ll go straight for it stage!” I laughed about your “set aside routines” thing – right now I cook and clean the dishes, do laundry when we have about 6 loads, and Tim vacuums when we can’t stand the floor. I wipe down toilets occasionally. That’s all that’s getting done around here right now!
We’re almost at the end though. I’m hoping to get some stuff done here the end of this week while the childcare professional is here – instead of running errands. It’s incredibly awesome to be able to not worry about our kids when she’s here. That’s a rare thing.