Tuesday, 2.24.09

I am feeling overwhelmed with the demands of my children. They have no consideration for me. This morning I am explaining to Mac that I need him to finish breakfast so that I can leave the kitchen. My face is ugly and my air is wet and I have to go to the bathroom, I explain to him. “I have to go pee really bad!” he says all the sudden. “No, I have to go to the bathroom,” I remind him. Ugh! I don’t get him. I don’t get either of them. It’s always a battle for everything. Who gets to put their feet in which part of the bed, who is going to pick up which toys, whose turn it is to get out of the bathtub first, listening to me when I ask them to put on their shoes, clean up their breakfast dishes, put their things away… it goes on and on and I remain calm for so much of it and I don’t make any headway. I break. I yell. They do as I ask. I feel terrible. They are upset. It’s a lose, lose situation whereby I get them to do what I want but at the price of us all being upset. And every morning Mac asks me if the dishwasher is clean or dirty, despite watching me load dirty dishes into it after putting away all the clean dishes morning after morning. Figure it out, I told him yesterday. I am all-consumed by my children – their health, their welfare, their happiness, protecting them, driving them. Today on our schedule everything from playtime at the indoor inflatable place with a friend to picking up a new violin to a hair cut is all revolving around Sailor. Preparing my taxes, converting and submitting the PTA newsletter, cleaning up, working on my own business, calling again about my health benefits…. There is no time built in to today’s schedule for these things. It’s all about the children. I of course love this but I do wish they could try to understand just a little bit the sacrifices we as parents make for them.

And don’t even get me started on the homework. Mac has so much of it that it is not possible to get it all done in a reasonable we amount of time every evening. Between the daily work – who expects a 2nd-grader to be able to use a dictionary!? To the long term project that requires him to use MY computer… it’s too much for the parents, not to mention the kids!