The Last Few Days

I have been meaning to come on here for days and write, because I’ve been craving it. It hasn’t been for lack of things to write about…

This week has been an incredibly crazy week filled with a large roller coaster ride of emotions that has just left me feeling plain exhausted. For the last two days, I’ve done nothing but lay in bed pouting and complaining about how sore my body is. There have been good moments and bad over the last few days, but I seem to be stuck in a rut when it comes to whatever feeling it is that I’ve been having that seems to come and go, well, for the last few days it’s been staying and holding tight with a deadly grip.

I wouldn’t say this is depression, because the feeling isn’t sad really. Then again, I’m sleeping a lot lately and I have a thousand and one reasons why depression would make sense. And maybe I am a little depressed and just in denial, but it’s not to this terrible point yet. I’m just beginning to notice that it’s beginning to affect me negatively and as I’ve said, these come and go in waves (as you’ll notice if you read back over the last few months), so I’m sure the tide is going to flow outwards again and I’ll be able to catch my breath.

So let’s talk about the last few days…

First, we started watching Dexter on Netflix. I really really love this show like crazy. We’ve even let the kids watch a few episodes and it is the most interested in a TV show we seem to be able to get them lately. Even got The Boyfriend hooked. But what I didn’t expect from this show was how much it would act as a major trigger for me. I kept thinking, “There should be a warning somewhere…”, because on multiple occasions  it has brought me back to places where terrible things have happened or terrible thoughts have occurred and I just wasn’t expecting it at all… For the most part, this is easy to deal with in the moment and I’m often over it shortly after the show ended, but some of the things seem to really be sticking in my mind and keeping the tide over my head.

Then, Kenzie and I have not been doing very well together. For some reason, he is in the stage of absolutely hating my guts and making it known at every possible turn. Obviously I know that he doesn’t actually hate my guts, but he insists on saying it to me every single day, multiple times a day. The one that is the hardest to deal with is the first thing in the morning one, which just turns my entire day to crap before it even gets started. There’s no worse way to start your day than to hear “I hate you” coming from your flesh and blood’s mouth.

We went through much the same thing with Kaeidyn, right around this age too, and for the life of me, I can’t remember how we dealt with it. I know that it didn’t last as long with Kaeidyn as it is with Kenzie and everything that we’ve attempted to do with Kenzie thus far has not worked at all. It all seems to add fuel to the fire and it’s been difficult. I often feel the least in control of my kids in that moment and like I’m never going to feel as if they respect me and all that I’ve done for them. Being over-dramatic I suppose…

The Boyfriend and I had program again this week, which goes as good as it always does. This was basically a review of the questionnaires that we filled out the last time we had went and basically to see where we stand based on our answers to all these questions. Oddly enough, on the depression test, The Boyfriend scored as more depressed than I was and it was the first time in my life that I scored as only mildly at risk for depression.  My favorite part of this whole entire appointment was when we were going over our Parenting Confidence and Satisfaction questionnaires, in which both The Boyfriend and I scored very high in our overall confidence but rather low on the satisfaction end of thing. Our worker asks, “Why do you think you got this result?” and The Boyfriend throws up his hands and goes, “This!”.

We both broke off to explain the “This!” as being more than just the program itself, but the whole parenting situation that we’ve been experiencing for the last few months, what with all the child services visits and the constant issues with the kids and the feeling of being so overwhelmed by this job. I pointed out that there was never any question about how good of parents we were, but how good of housekeepers we were and yet we had to go to parenting classes not housekeeping classes. We both vented and it felt really good and really nice. It’s also nice because our worker strongly believes in focusing on the positive, so we haven’t heard much negative at all about our parenting which is nice!

In other news entirely, we just jumped over the 100 member mark in The Erotic Writers Group Google+ Community. I’m spending as much of the rest of the night as The Boyfriend will let me catching up on all the stuff that I’ve missed out on over the last few days of my absence  from the computer. Hopefully I’ll be able to update you with more about all that fun stuff later. Well, I hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend and staying warm during this lovely “spring” snowstorm 😉

Failure is Natural, Apparently

It’s just absolute second nature to me, failing… I fail at everything and usually it’s in the most epic way possible. I can’t just complete a freaking goal. Seriously, how hard is it to blog every single day? Not that hard, especially when I’ve had so freaking much to write about. But, this is the first time in at least 5 days that I’ve even gotten on the computer…

The funk that I had been talking about a few days ago, not only got worse but lasted for a long time. Even at this point, I’m not sure I’m out of it or if this is just a little break it’s allowing me to take. I haven’t felt this agitated, depressed, overwhelmed, and just generally upset in a really long time. Today, thank goodness, is being a decent day and I haven’t been boggled down by nothing but negative thoughts but it’s the first day in almost a week that I’ve felt this good.

For the most part, this last week really sucked.

First, I lost all love of blogging literally overnight. I even sat down with The Boyfriend and had a serious discussion with him about not blogging anymore… I’m not sure what sparked this feeling that I’m done with it and I still haven’t even made a decision one way or another. I just sometimes feel like I waste so much of my time on blogging (on all my blogs) and for no real purpose. I’m just losing all my blogging hope. Hope for what, I don’t know, but I’m losing it… And I can’t believe how seriously I’ve considered stopping, because if I don’t have blogging, what do I have?!?

Then, the week continued to get worse as I felt more and more bad about thinking about quitting blogging. My Mom had come over after I had had a stressful couple of days and was just feeling generally down and out. As we’re talking on my bed, a lady comes up to my door. Turns out, yet again, someone called Child Services on us – this time, we apparently had no food. I invited her into the house and was all proud because our cupboards were filled with food, so there was no merit to this report that they had gotten. But because of our previous issue with them, she’s decided to keep our case opened…

Our house was relatively clean and what wasn’t cleaned, got that way before she came over again. I figured it would be as simple as showing her that we could get the little bit of mess that was here cleaned up and she would close our case and everything would be fine. But no… Instead, she thinks that both The Boyfriend and I need some additional parenting help, so until we start getting that, our case is staying open.

I wish that I didn’t have to keep proving myself over and over again as a perfectly capable parent. Yes, my house gets dirtier than it should and that’s something that I am sincerely working on. Other than that, there is nothing anyone can say about me that puts me into the bad parent category that continually needs to be monitored by a government agency. They’ve interviewed the kids multiple times now and each time results in the same thing, the kids saying that they are happy in the situation they have and that they wouldn’t change it for the world… They’ve now interviewed me multiple times and The Boyfriend twice and they know we are aware of the problems we do have, we are taking steps to deal with the problems we do have and we’re willing to do even more. I’m not sure what more we could possibly do to prove that we’re not shit parents.

And I’m absolutely tired of people who have never even set foot into my house, calling about things they have no idea about. We don’t even know who called on us this time, which just drives me even more up the wall. It was most definitely someone who has never been in my house, that’s all I know for sure. It makes parenting so much harder though when you aren’t even given the chance to be confident in what you are doing, but instead are constantly wondering when the next time someone is going to file a false report about you. I just hate that I work my ass off day in and day out to provide my kids with the things they need, to give myself to them and be there for them, when I’m exhausting myself stressing out about them, and none of it seems to make even a fraction of a difference. I know it sounds cliche, but it’s comforting, haters gonna hate…

After the lady left, both the first and second visits, I was beyond ready to throw in the towel. I kept saying over and over again that if the government really thought I was just that terrible of a parent, they should just take the kids or that I should just send them to live with Alfie and let him deal with constantly having every aspect of his parenting shoved down his throat as an improvement he needs to make. Obviously, these are only thoughts and not actually something I would do. I couldn’t stand having my kids taken from me, even by their own dad…

Then, my brother was in the hospital for a couple days and we were all excited about any progress he might be able to make. They put him back on the same old meds that he was on last time, at a super-low-dose and then sent him home. For a day or two, he seemed alright. A little bit crazy here and there, but nothing that wasn’t manageable. Then, out of nowhere, he’s right back to absolute crazy even while he’s still on the meds. So, we’ve been dealing with him whenever the house that he’s living out no longer feels “safe” to him. It’s stressing everyone out and we all seem bitchy because of it.

It’s just been a whirlwind week of crap and I don’t even think I’ve opened the whole can left. It’s like when you open a can of corn and you’re shaking it all out but there’s still a huge clump of kernels not letting go. I haven’t even delved into that clump. That’s how I feel… It sure makes a person want to sleep a whole heck of a lot!

Just Quick

My poor Carter is very sick. He did good all day and then right around dinner, he started looking flushed and was complaining that he was sick and now his whole body is aching and his stomach hurts. Kaeidyn went through almost the exact same thing yesterday and still looks rough today.

I, on the other hand, slept most of the day away, even though I was trying so hard not to. I just absolutely could not wake up. We had the people here to fix our door and I stayed mostly awake during that, but as soon as they left, I fell back asleep until the kids started asking for dinner!

At first when I woke up, I felt so angry and upset that I had slept almost all day. Turns out it was the start day of my period and once I got past the initial upset, I actually got a lot done including dishes, laundry and cleaned even more of the kitchen. Plus, Kaeidyn did a great job making sure the boys didn’t make a mess of all the cleaning we did yesterday and the day before.

I have been having a difficult time getting motivated to get on the computer, which is unfortunate because I feel like I’m just not giving 100% to any of my current online ventures. As it is right now, I’m writing this from my bed on my BlackBerry and I just don’t feel like I’m actually getting anything done… Definitely need to make some adjustments there.

Now it’s time to watch some Star trek, which The Boyfriend and I are getting more and more addicted to. From watching 2 or 3 episodes every night of Next Generation and playing Star Trek Online to the constant talk of it. We’re obsessed!

No More Crazy, Please?!?

This morning is not being good to me at all. If I thought yesterday was an emotionally rough day, I think today – no, I know today – is going to end up being even worse…

First, there is the fact that I got less than two hours of sleep. For some reason, the kids and I have been on high-alert about everything. Every little noise, any slight bit of movement, literally everything. We’re all sketching pretty hard, about what or why, I’m not 100% sure. Yes, we did have a break-in and yes, we’re all still feeling some of the affects of that, but sketching this hard… So, it took awhile for the kids to fall asleep because they were up and down over every thump from the neighbors or because The Boyfriend and I would get too quiet downstairs.

Once they were asleep though, I thought I’d fall asleep with ease. As The Boyfriend and I tucked ourselves into bed, I see lights flashing like crazy out the front window. So, I go over and look and there’s a cop car just down the street a little ways, just sitting there with his lights on. Don’t ask me why, but this made me incredibly nervous. Then, the cop starts acting real sketchy like – and not actually the cop, but the car he was driving. First, he’s stopped at one stop sign, then he does a U-turn and stops at the other stop sign, then he drives around the intersection and stops at another stop sign, each time sitting there for a good 5 or 10 minutes, lights blaring through the front window.

So, I spent a good long while nervous and frantically checking in on the sketchy cop and his lights. After the cop finally leaves and relief washes over me, the heater starts sounding differently. This is pretty common for me. It takes me awhile to get used to the heater at night, because it just sounds so much louder and more daunting when the house is quiet. During the day, we don’t notice it because there is just so much noise around here, but at night, there is nothing to drown the thing out. I tossed and turned forever freaking out about the heater.

Finally, my eyes won’t stay open any longer. I can’t fight sleep and my whole body can feel it. My ankle starts to hurt really bad and it takes me forever to get comfortable, especially being that I’m too worried to roll away from the door, so I stay uncomfortably facing it. The Boyfriend can feel me tossing and turning, even though he’s been sleeping for a couple hours. He rolls over and snuggles in close behind me. Again, I feel relief – for a moment.

Now that the weather is getting warmer, he sweats in his sleep, profusely. I’ve never witnessed anything like the sweat that pours from him during his sleep. And he doesn’t even notice. But as he cuddles into me, all I can feel is wet and cold and hot all at the same time and it’s not a good environment for sleep. How he sleeps is beyond me, because I don’t think I could if I were the one sweating like that. He says that the only thing he notices is that he gets really really cold when the blanket is taken off…

His alarm goes off, 6 AM, and I’m just starting to fall asleep. He gets up and I steal his pillow and make myself quite comfortable. As he’s waiting for his cab, I’m content and drift off. He leaves and I lock the door behind him and then fall right back to sleep with ease. Before I can even get to the point of a blissful deep sleep, a creepy and very light rat-a-tat-tat happens at my door. I ignore it, since I recognize the knock as my brother’s. But, it happens again and then a push on the locked door and then it happens again and again.

I was content to continue to ignore it until I deemed it an appropriate hour for him to be here. The kids, however, did not feel the same way. All three of the older kids come rushing down the stairs, “Someone’s at our door! Mommy, there’s someone at our door!“. I whisper to them that it’s just Uncle Goober and we’re just going to ignore him. As he pushes on the door again, all the kids jump and Kaeidyn begins crying, “Mommy, please just answer the door!”, scared out of her skull.

I go over to the door and yell through it, “You can’t be here right now, it’s too early. You’re scaring the kids and you need to go back to your house to sleep” and he starts yelling back at me – something my brother almost never does. I tell him he needs to leave my doorstep or I’m going to have to call the cops on him, so he leaves and we’re all prepared to go back to sleep. The kids all crawl into bed with me, we get ourselves all tucked in and comfy, when his voice is now at my front door mumbling away to himself. I go over to the door and open it and before he can even get a word in, tell him he needs to leave and he needs to leave now! Then, he starts yelling at me again as he’s slowly backing away from a very grumpy-in-the-morning Val… He starts saying how where he’s living now isn’t working out either and can’t he just sleep where he feels safe and all this crap, that I find out later isn’t even true.

For some reason, he goes completely stiff and then falls down into the snow and says that he’s going to sleep there. Not in the mood, I say to him that I’m calling the cops and close and lock the door behind me. He goes back to his house. I call my Mom, in tears because of all this lack of sleep and all this stress first thing in the morning and I’m yelling at her about the whole situation. She’s trying to calm me down and I’m just getting more and more upset about it. She calls around to find out from the house what’s going on with him and then she calls his work to find out what’s going on there and my brother is just bat-shit crazy right now and it’s to the point where our only option is to call the cops on him…

And, it feels freaking terrible!

By this point, the thought of sleep is the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. We’re all pissed off, we’re all upset, we’re all worried, we’re all stressed out and we’re all completely helpless… I don’t know how to help him through this at all. I don’t even think Freud would’ve been able to help him through this! I’m strongly of the opinion that he needs to be institutionalized until they find a cocktail of drugs that will work for him, will help him sleep, will help him stay in control of his thoughts. Like my Mom says every single time I try to tell her he doesn’t need drugs, he has done actual brain damage and it’s not something talk therapy is going to help.

I want so badly to be his big supportive and protective sister. I want so badly to take him in my arms and make him feel all better. I can’t imagine how it feels for my Mom… I just want him to not be crazy like this.

Electronic Junkies…

I don’t know why I keep raising my boys to be total electronics junkies. With Kenzie, it was all about playing video games. The constant asking, the constant whining when he couldn’t and though he’s not as bad now as he was 2 years ago, he’s not cured. Keirnan, it seems to be Netflix. He gets upset when he doesn’t get to hold the paddle, when he doesn’t get to pick the show or when he just doesn’t get to watch it.

Cater, my sweet little Carter, is obsessed with the computer. I mean, worse than any of the other boys are obsessed with their things. He wakes up in the morning and wants to play on the computer. When we lock the computer, he’ll sit there attempting to write in passwords, clicking around on all the Ease of Access stuff and finally, he will get frustrated and just turn off the computer. Then he’ll turn it on again, thinking that password screen will no longer be there.

Once The Boyfriend and I are up and moving around, we’ll kick him off the computer and he’ll scream and cry and freak out that it’s his computer and that it’s his turn on it. If we don’t get on it the second he’s been kicked off, he’ll sneak onto it constantly, until eventually we don’t notice him sitting there playing his games!

It’s beginning to become the most annoying part of the day…

In other news, Kaeidyn’s still insisting on sleeping downstairs. She gives it a shot upstairs in her room but the sounds get to her and she eventually moves downstairs. The Boyfriend wants to get tougher on her and make her stay up there for longer before she’s allowed to come down, but I just feel bad for her. Explains why I let the kids stay sleeping in my bed until they were in Kindergarten!!

A lot of times, we’ll wake up in the morning to all the kids sleeping down here. I’m still having some issues falling asleep at night. For over a week, The Boyfriend and I didn’t go to bed until at least 4 in the morning. Just too worried about all the sounds. Some nights I’ll get away with not having to move the dresser in front of the door, but more often than not, I’m still asking for that dresser there every night. I’ll just stay up too long sketching about every noise if I don’t. But at least the actual break-in isn’t on our minds much anymore.

Well, that’s pretty much this last week in a nutshell. Boring, I know, but that’s life sometimes. How’s your week been going?

I Am Angry…

I did so well that first night. A couple Smirnoff Ice’s and I fell asleep easily and like a baby. Last night, sans alcohol, the story was not the same. I tossed and turned and frantically jumped at every single noise for the first 4 hours after going to bed. Once I did fall asleep, I couldn’t stay that way and then, 8 AM rolls around and my alarm goes off. I hit snooze when suddenly rat-a-tat-tat at the door.

Yesterday morning, the guy who broke into the house out of sheer fear comes by at the crack of dawn to apologize for what he had done. Because our door was busted, we rigged a dresser up in front of it to keep it shut. I couldn’t move it out of the way, so shouted through the door that we thanked him for his apology and were sorry for all of what was happening to him and his family. I thought that would be it…

But this morning, the guys mother-in-law shows up on our doorstep, telling us the whole story behind what was happening and how her son is now going to end up in jail even though he just had a baby. I was still half asleep when she starts going off, so didn’t really respond to her, just told her that I understood – even though, by my reaction after she had left, it’s obvious I don’t understand.

So, here’s the story as we understand it so far…

A few months ago, our neighbours, a guy and a girl, had a baby. The baby was about 3 months old when it died of SIDS. At this point, the mom and dad begin doing drugs and start getting abusive towards one another. Finally, the girl gets fed up with being smacked around and calls her mom. Her mom decides to send her brother over to their house to “deal with it”. Instead of being a grown up and dealing with it in a logical and sensical way, her brother goes over with a BB gun and a buddy with a baseball bat and threatens to beat the shit out of the guy for hitting his sister. He runs away from his beating, all the way over to our house, breaks down our door and then gets beaten on our floor.

That’s essentially the whole story right there, as we know it at the moment…

And it makes me so damn mad. First of all, it makes me mad that because these 2 people’s lives were destroyed by the tragedies that faced them, they had to go and destroy 6 other completely unrelated people’s lives. And I know that destroy sounds very dramatic in this situation, being that we’re all alive and all okay. But when I say destroy, I’m speaking psychologically. My biggest fear in the world was that someone would break into my house – and somebody did. And I had that fear so under control and now that’s completely out the window. I’ll never be able to sleep again without worrying that I’m going to close my eyes and someone’s going to bang at my door like that…

Who the hell knows how this is affecting the kids… Carter was sitting right here in the living room when they broke down the door. If it weren’t for The Boyfriend grabbing him and holding onto him tight, there’s every chance in the world one of those BB’s would’ve hit him or he would’ve been in the crossfires of the morons punches. The other 3 kids were wide awake up in their room, listening to the screaming and raucous that was going on downstairs, just praying to god that the “bad guys” didn’t come up to their room. Whose to say this isn’t something that’s going to affect them for the rest of their lives.

They destroyed our lives!!

And I’m so incredibly angry about it. I hurt for them and that’s the worst part. My emotions are literally all over the place. On one hand, I feel sorry for the whole lot of them and I want to help them so bad. They are hurting and I can just imagine how messed up they must be. There’s a huge part of me that wants to go over to their house (only 4 doors down from us) and just wrap them both in my arms and I want to cry with them and hurt with them and comfort them.

On the other hand, I’m so angry. I’m mad at them and I want to hurt them like they hurt me. I want to slap them both for being such morons and cowards. I want to scream at them and make them feel guilty for the pain they’ve caused us. I want to force them to stare into my kids face and see how scared they’ve made them. I want to slap the mother who sent her son over there to “deal with it” and I want them to feel more terrible than they’ve ever felt before. How dare they!

Needless to say, I have spent the entire morning in a state of extreme anger. I have vented my head off to The Boyfriend, I have said over and over again how much I’m resisting going over there and involving myself anymore, and I just can’t stop being so mad. And frankly, I feel incredibly guilty for being so mad. I’m mad because they can’t just leave well enough alone. It’s not enough that they already broke down my door and they already shot me with a BB, it’s not enough. Now, they have to keep coming back every morning, making me re-live the whole thing over and over again.

I just feel like, if there was anything to throw me over to the deep end of the mental ocean, this is it and I’m so angry about that!

Kaeidyn’s Tude and Great Talk With Mom

10 more comments and I’ve reached 200! That’s pretty exciting, though I bet half of those are from me…

I woke up this morning, in a pretty rotten mood. First, Kaeidyn threw a hissy fit over a shirt that she couldn’t find. I, of course, didn’t completely understand what her issue was being that she was wearing a perfectly fine shirt. So that was step one to a rotten mood. And the whining about this shirt lasted all morning until they finally left for school. I was so upset by this stupid fight first thing in the morning, I decided I was going back to bed.

It took me forever to start falling back asleep, which was a good sign in all honesty. Lately, I’ve been finding it too easy to fall asleep. So I was quite happy that it wasn’t coming easily and that I laid there quite awake for quite awhile. Then, Carter came and snuggled with me and within minutes I was falling back to sleep. Unfortunately, I had not realized that along the way, my alarm clock got unplugged. I woke up just in time to get Keirnan ready for school, but was concerned that I didn’t have enough time to get him to school. I called Mom to see if she’d be willing to drop him off and she was.

While the house isn’t that messy, the kitchen is, but the house in general isn’t, my Mom right away started in on me. Not so much about the mess as it was about how dark it was in here even though the sun was shining bright and she could tell that it was taking it’s toll on me. She said it was obvious that I was feeling a little depressed and overwhelmed. I hadn’t even really realized it, but when she said it, it made sense. She made me open my curtain in the living room (which hasn’t been done since they got put up weeks ago) and forced me to open a window, even though the whole time I was saying it wasn’t necessary.

By the way I feel now, she was definitely right! I always think it’s amazing how Mom’s can do this kind of stuff. I’m always shocked when my Mom’s right about things, I seriously don’t know what it is. It’s just too bad that her advice never seems to work for her, because she is majorly stressed out or depressed. She knows it too but it’s more out of her control than my overwhelmed and depressed is…

We had a nice long talk after Keirnan got to school and that was really good. I hope for her as much as it was for me. I enjoy when we can just talk like we did and everything just feels good afterwards. I vent, she vents, we catch up on things and reminisce about other things. I definitely walk away from these talks feeling better about just about everything.

Then, I played on the computer and checked out a video that Carter and The Boyfriend had made last night and then it was time to go pick up the kids from school. Boy is it ever a nice day out today. I wore my sweater and my jacket, thinking I would be too cold because it looked windy out, but it was warm as heck. Almost all of the snow has melted and the sun is shining bright and it felt really good to go for that walk.

Had another bit of a tiff with Kaeidyn on the walk home about her backpack and her having to plan to have friends come over to the house, not just randomly deciding without asking any parents. I spent half the walk home lecturing her about her terrible attitude and her promising me it would stop, as long as she got to keep her backpack in her room. So sick of all the arguing happening with her. It seems like the only time her and I communicate is when we’re mad at each other and when our attitudes are in high gear. It’s exhausting and completely un-fun.

Well, that’s pretty much life in a nutshell right now. How’s your Monday going?

Not Going Good

I don’t feel like I’m in a good way today… Hell, I don’t feel like I’ve been in a good way for weeks now. First of all, I’m re-sick again. I began feeling better, I was finally able to breathe through my nose and I was just dealing with a cough and then I woke up two days ago with my throat absolutely scratching away and my nose all runny again. And it’s happening to everyone.

Kaeidyn was up half the night last night coughing and growling through her stuffed nose, keeping The Boyfriend awake. He’s now into the constant headaches part of this cold and Kenzie woke up this morning hacking his lungs out. Carter has had a non-stop runny/stuffed nose for a good couple of weeks now. But I’m most pissed that I’ve restarted this cold.

I don’t do well with colds. They make all of me hurt. I can’t sleep properly at night, I can’t wake up properly during the day, I can’t function like a normal person when I’m sick. And don’t even get me started on how much I’m not functioning and how much that’s bringing me completely down. I feel myself just wanting to sleep my entire life away and apparently that’s what I’ve been trying to achieve.

But I am downright exhausted… I think the earliest I’ve gone to bed in the last few weeks was around 1 AM. Last night, I was up until way after 3 in the morning, just tossing and turning. Other nights, I stay awake listening to all the sounds in the house. Other nights, I just lay there awake and cannot finally sleep. Finally, I guess, exhaustion consumes me and I eventually fall asleep – hours and hours after everyone has already fallen asleep.

By the time the alarm goes off at 6:30, I’m just starting to actually get into a deep sleep. So I sleep through The Boyfriend’s alarm. He resets it for 7:30 and that’s when the kids are supposed to wake up to get ready for school – though every morning but today, they’re normally up way before that. I’ve been staying in bed when they wake up, half awake, half asleep and make sure they grab everything they need for school. Then after they leave, I tend to fall right back to sleep to catch up on the hours of sleep that I’ve missed. And it’s a terrible habit…

Today, I woke up earlier than usual because the kids were all getting into candy, they were all being loud and rambunctious, and the phone would not stop ringing. The second I sat up in bed, I just felt today being the world’s crappiest day. The Boyfriend called from work and broke more bad news to me and now I can’t stop feeling like I’m on the verge of crying. I don’t want to move and I just want to go back to sleep…

I am just so tired of this life not being kind to me. Every time I think that things are starting to get better for us in anyway, the universe has to bring me back down to reality and remind me that apparently, things are never going to start getting better for us. It’s pissing me off a lot. We were so excited about the big chunk of money we’d be saving in bills and rent when we moved into this place and so far, we’re not seeing that change at all. Somehow, our money is lasting less time. And while a small portion of that can be accounted for in extra food expenditures (since our kids are always hungry), I just don’t know where the rest of it’s going.

There is literally too much that I can whine about. I was doing good keeping the house clean and then this cold hit and now I can’t seem to bring myself to want to do any cleaning whatsoever. Like I said, I just want to sleep… I look around the house and automatically feel exhausted and automatically have to force myself not to just climb back into bed. Things are just not going good for me…

Not Feeling Good…

Today is not being a good day. I do not feel well at all. I woke up this morning with a raging headache and a strong desire to not leave my bed. As the half hour passed, my stomach became increasingly upset until I was curled in a ball feeling all sorts of nausea. Another half hour passed and I was blissfully falling into a deep and very uncomfortable sleep. Don’t ask me how much time passed at this point, because I am entirely unaware, but at some point I woke up to Carter’s blood curdling screams.

I rolled around on the bed, trying to mask the noise and gently nudging The Boyfriend to go deal with it. Moments passed before I was getting up and dealing with Carter, not because The Boyfriend wouldn’t but because Carter wouldn’t listen to Daddy. Even though I still felt entirely like shit, I got up and cleaned the kitchen and Kaeidyn helped like she’s never helped before. Then we made a delicious mashed potato, bacon, sausage and corn dinner. Then, the boys decided to have a food fight…

After getting all upset about this and sending some boys to bed, I spent far too many hours plastered in front of the computer screen playing games. And now I feel like my body is decending into terrible pain. I have felt sore like this for days now. My back hurts which makes my neck and arms hurt and once my neck starts hurting, my head starts hurting. Then, my knees are bugging me which makes my ankles hurt really bad and nothing I do seems to help whatsoever.

I’m hoping that it’s just a mixture of PMS and the weather change that’s going on right now. We haven’t gotten snow yet, but the weather forecast has been calling for it on and off. Have I told you yet how much I’m not looking forward to that?!? It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to walk out in it. We’ve already decided that winter outerwear is on our next shopping list. And this year, I’m determined to buy myself a proper winter coat (as opposed to whatever leftover jacket or sweater whichever boyfriend I had at the time had) and proper winter boots (as opposed to whatever pair of runners I had from previous years)…

I need my mood and health to change in the next 24 hours… I have so much cleaning to do this weekend, I have to make sure Kaeidyn’s swimsuit is clean for this weeks swimming lesson and I want to make up lunches over the weekend for every day of school, because we had some complaints from the teacher again about Kaeidyn finishing her entire lunch at recess. Don’t ask me how she does it, because I sincerely don’t know, but she does… So come on Val, get healthy!

Monday Ramblings

The lazy weekend was absolutely and exactly what I needed, apparently. This morning, I had no problems at all waking up even though I had woken up with The Boyfriend for a little bit before he went to work only 45 minutes earlier. I felt energized enough to walk all the way to the store after walking the kids to school to get myself a morning coffee. My mind feels alert and awake and all the cleaning that I didn’t do over the weekend is well on it’s way to being done and it’s only 10:30 in the morning!!

I’m so glad that today has been the way that it has been today. I went to bed last night fretting about all the things I neglected over the weekend and worrying about what would happen if I didn’t have the energy for any of it today and how I was going to force myself through it. As the great sex finished and the cuddling after had ended, as we rolled our separate ways, I stated, “Tomorrow, I am going to be energetic!” and for the first time in my life, I think I went to be on a positive thought instead of a negative one.

I wouldn’t say I slept any better or worse than I usually do after a good session of sex. I will definitely say that sleep comes much easier and feels much deeper, even if it’s a shorter sleep, after a good romping. Your body and mind is exhausted once you’re done, so you just give into the sleep better. Normally, I lay there wide awake for another hour at the very least, tossing and turning and thinking. But after sex, once we get comfy, I’m out in seconds. I don’t even notice I’m falling asleep, where usually I have to keep telling myself, “Keep your eyes closed, it’ll happen…”

I feel so good about life in general today. I stayed up late last night looking more into going back to school. I’ve discovered where I need to start, so that’s a really great thing. That’s normally my biggest problem with any goal that I’m trying to achieve. I have a hard time breaking down the steps into the baby ones and instead look at the bigger picture of things. I tend to do a lot of future planning and very little right-now planning. Half the time, I don’t even realize there should be steps to get to the bigger goal.

I’m also really loving these walks to the school 5 days a week. Normally by Thursday (or at least, this was the case last week, we’ll have to wait and see for this one), I absolutely despise the walking. But apparently a lazy weekend easily solves this issue. I’m loving getting the fresh air first thing in the morning and then throughout the day, I’m taking a lot of joy in seeing all the trees and bushes along our walk changing color with the season (even if it makes me dread the coming season). Fall has always been one of my favorite times of year. Everything looks so vibrant even though it’s dying. It’s an irony that always leaves me looking like a quizzical avatar. I have fun with the kids when we’re walking too, which is so rare these days that it’s incredibly welcome.

I’m feeling good about the cleaning too. Even though we let it slide a lot more than we should’ve this weekend, it’s not taking me long to get it done today. And my motivation with the cleaning is through the roof. While my sink was full of dishes almost all weekend, in 20 minutes I got that under control this morning. And the floor got swept over the weekend and will again today. Now, I just need to kick my ass to get the laundry under control. I’m doing a great job at getting rid of clothes that no longer fit now, but the ones I’m keeping still aren’t making it to a drawer. Something to work on!

Well, here’s to optimistic and totally productive Monday! Let’s just hope this continues for awhile. I like this a lot better than previous days emotions…