HELP!

I love my kids and I am forever thankful that I am able to stay home with them. But there are days when I'm so tired the neurons in my brain are barely firing and my patience is worn so thin that I am just plain annoyed and find my beautiful, glorious, amusing, and sweet children to be irritating. On these days I want to be a child again. I want to throw down my bags, stomp through the house, slam the door behind me, and pout or cry or just sleep and leave them in their own misery.

Addy waxes and wanes in her use of her 'whiney' voice, in the frequency, duration, and type of demands she makes, and in the amount she NEEDS her choochee (pacifier). On the days/weeks where all of these are waxing my patience are challenged. And mostly my patience is thin when I am not in the best shape. When I haven't taken time to exercise or when my sleep is poor. Which brings me to little E. Elliott has been having some sleep issues lately. At first we were super pumped that he would be a 'good' sleeper. You know the kind that doesn't really exist. The kind that everyone makes you think you should have but in reality only a lucky few actually do. Elliott, like Addy and most other babies, has reflux issues. For most babies they just deal with the extra spitting up, but for others the acidity bothers them. This is the case for our babes. And so sleep has been disrupted with every gurgle and regurgitation of acidy milk Elliott has, every hour...ah! We hate resorting to medicine, but after trying all sorts of other things (propping his bed up, reducing my acidy food intake, etc.) we were left with no other option. Sleep has improved! Thank goodness. But we are still recovering and today I thought I was going to lose it. I could not stand one more request or cry and if a nap wasn't going to happen I was going to break down and cry (a nap happened for us all, joy, joy, joy). Today was a day when I should have called upon the friends who have offered a gazillion times to hang out with my kids or my dad who has been awesome at taking Addy to the park or the library, but when you're in the moment is the hardest time to see the solution. And so I write this post in hopes that processing this publicly will help me remember that yes, parenting is hard, and yes, some days you feel like a cruddy parent, and yes, it's ok to ask for help. And when I need a break it doesn't mean I don't love my kids or that I am abandoning them or that I am a failure (issues I realize I have for various reasons I won't bore you with right now), but just the opposite, it rejuvenates, grounds us all, in our place in our family and gives us the experiences away from each other that enrich our lives all the more. And so, tomorrow my dad comes over to play and Friday Elliott gets to hang with Caryn while Addy and I have a date and this weekend maybe we'll go blueberry picking all together with Anj and Ken. I love being at home and I love Addy and Elliott, but it sure is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.