My State of Mind

Have you ever felt like the world is out to get you?...that nothing goes right no matter what you do?...that you just feel angry all the time? That's how I've been feeling lately. I feel like I am going to loose it. Bug drives me nuts and Darling Hubby drives me nuts. It seems I'm going nuts.

Yesterday could have been the straw that broke the camels back..thankfully, it wasn't. I haven't had a decent nights sleep in a long time and if you know me, I NEED my sleep. I'm cranky and grumpy...which seems to be my constant mood lately. Anyway, I was awakened in the night by Bug's coughing and after that, I had trouble going back to sleep because my stomach was bothering me (which it does most of the time...) After DH left for work I conked back out and either Bug was very quiet or I was just dead to the world...This spells DISASTER! I was finally awoken from my slumber by a great crash and Bug saying, "All done." This can't be good. I just think about the fact that we rearranged his room the night before and I'm sure he's found an all new thing to get into.

As I toss on my robe I push open his door and hurdle the waist high baby gate. I've failed to place my glasses on my nose and therefore can't see completely clearly. What presents itself is this:

I see Bug, dressed in blue car PJ's with what I at first glance assume is powder ("No big deal," I think, "powder comes out easily")....that is, until he politely hands me the empty jar of Seudocream (diaper rash ointment from Ireland) saying, "Here you go, Mommy." I am very quickly annoyed and he's quickly ushered into the bathroom where I try in vain to remove the white cream from him...he was coated up to his elbows and had some on his face and hair...This stuff is a great solution to diaper rash as it stays on the bum very nicely...that was the problem with it being on hands and face...it doesn't come off easily. Thankfully after several scrub downs with baby wash and warm water, it came off...Next was to get him out of the soiled jammies and survey the damage done to the room.

Without glasses on, it looked pretty grim. I could just see white everywhere. After stowing Bug in his bed and telling him to stay put (and removing the very smeared top blanket (fleece) on the bed) grabbed my glasses and a wet cloth to try to clean up. It was everywhere...all over the rocking chair (which thankfully isn't fabric), all over the changing table, on the side of the dresser, the bottom of a book, all over an old pair of slippers, all over the fleece blanket in his bed, his blankie and his jammies.

I got him dressed, tossed the soiled fabrics into his laundry basket and ushered him down the stairs. After parking Bug in the chair at the table and giving him a bowl of cereal I attempted to tackle the job of getting white zinc oxide cream out of everything. After tossing the slippers in the trash (they were getting small anyway and I didn't want to mess with them) wiping up everything with paper towels as best I could, I sprayed everything with a liberal coating of spray & wash. Hey, it says it works great on grease and grass so I figured if it would help break up the greasiness of the cream, why not. I rubbed it in a little and then poured on some water, followed by a good scrub with Dawn dish washing liquid. I figure if they can use it on ducks in oil spills, it should be safe to use on a fleece blanket. After that, everything got tossed into the washer with warm water and washed...twice...just to be safe. Thankfully, it all came out and you can't even tell it was ever there.

The book on the other hand is still up in the air whether it is a lost cause or not. At first glance, I saw that there was a little cream on the bottom of the pages and the sides, like he was flipping through reading it with dirty fingers...this was far from the case. Two whole sets of pages where lovingly fingerpainted with white goodness and stuck together. I wiped off what I could with paper towels and then, after DH's suggestion, used a spackle knife to scrape the pages clear of the rest of the mess. The pages are mostly dry now and they are see-through...They still feel a little on the slimy side and I'm not sure what I'm going to do. On the brightside...it smells ok...

So as punishment, Bug was without his favorite TV shows and his favorite computer games for the day. I don't know if he truely understood the punishment, but everytime he asked for one of those things, I reminded him about what he did that morning, explaining that what he did was bad. He knew Mommy was mad and he did apologize, only after I told him he had to...

So this set my mood for the day. I was on edge all day. The littlest things set me off. Don't get me started on our dog Max who barks at the drop of a hat and is very needy so he's right next to you following you around all day. I can't take a step without kicking him or put my feet down from the couch/chair without stepping on him. Needless to say, his clingy behavior got old VERY QUICKLY. Poor DH came home and after dinner he was planning to go to the local game store for a bit. We made it through dinner and afterwards he said something benign, but I just snapped, told him to drop it, that I wished everyone would just leave me alone and told him to just go to the store. He left without another word. Of course, I cried after wards.

I don't know what it is. It seems lately the littlest things set me off. I have such a quick temper it's not even funny anymore. I think I'm feeling overworked, under appreciated, and stressed. I'm stressed because of the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. I'm stressed about all the noise that I have to deal with when the families get together, which is often like visiting the zoo on giveaway day. Everyone is there and it's loud. I'm stressed about the fact that we are low on funds and the number of presents that we have to purchase. I'm stressed because we ordered a bunch of presents online this past weekend and when the package arrived...it wasn't our order. Now we have to have those items shipped back and the order redone. I just want to get everything done BEFORE Thanksgiving. I hate shopping after Black Friday. I'm stressed because I have No. Bloody. Clue. what to get DH for Christmas.

I'm feeling over worked because it seems that I'm constantly doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, babysitting, etc. I know I have free time each day during naptime to do what I want, which generally consists of reading or watching tv since I need something quiet to do since Baby Girl is such a light sleeper. Sometimes I want to sew, but can't because my sewing machine is in the room where she sleeps. I can't bake because even the slightest clanging pots and pans and the opening and closing of the fridge wake her through the walls. I just feel like my free time really isn't mine because I'm so limited.

I feel under appreciated sometimes because I do things around the house and no one seems to notice. The carpets are always vacuumed and the floors swept, the cat and dog pans are cleaned, the laundry is washed, hung, dried, folded and put away, Bug's toys are picked up, dinner is cooked, all the bills paid, the checkbook balanced and the finances and meals planned. I clean the bathrooms and bedrooms as necessary, gather the garbage, empty Bug's diaper pail, walk 3 dogs all on top of caring for 2 small kids. And sometimes I even do a bunch of they yard work outside. It's when I fail to do something that I get, not necessarily criticized verbally, but I can see the disappointment from DH in the way he acts. Our kitchen counter is a catchall for papers and I'm not always good about keeping it cleared and he gets annoyed when there is no counter space left to use. If I don't do the dishes and they pile up I can tell he get annoyed. It would be different if we had a dishwasher that actually functioned, but since the one that came with the house barely kept itself clean on wash cycles, we took it out and never replaced it. We needed the space it was in for the garbage can/returnable bottles and never had the money to buy a new one. Honestly, I'd just rather spend time with Bug and DH than be stuck in the kitchen doing dishes. It feels like all I ever do is clean anymore and no one appreciates that. I try to be good about saying thank you when DH does something like empty the dish drainer (which is his job). I just feel like I never get any thanks at all. I'm sure that's not the case and that Dh enjoys coming home to a clean house and a home cooked meal and is thankful that I do it all, but sometimes I just feel like no one notices.

So after getting in a small fight this morning when DH woke me up at 6 (which I really wish he wouldn't do) I had a good cry about how I was feeling. He told me he's felt the same way at his job and that you just have to keep doing what you are doing and get through. I'm still feeling like the world is out to get me, but I'm feeling a little better...at least I think can get through today and maybe tomorrow.