Saturation Point

I'm at a saturation point. I'm very tired of EVERYTHING. Mostly it is because if I let my body take over my mind then I would just sleep all day or lay in bed.  I told my husband the other night at my favorite sushi joint Sugarfish that I am just zapped out. I don't want to cook. I don't want to exercise. And I was embarrassed to say that I didn't want to be running after kids or changing poopy diapers for a minute. But only a minute. The minute I do away and try to have some "me" time I feel guilty and miss the kids. Blah.

I'm just plain old tired. I don't think that's from the chemo pills. I think it's from being a mother to an active toddler and a nine month old. Not to be a whiner but man, being a mom is hard.  It's funny when people without kids wonder "gee, why can't you just RELAX?" or "why are they so disorganized?" Really?!?!? When people used to tell me "wait until you have kids then you can judge" well now I know what they are talking about.  I never understood when my friends didn't want to meet me for drinks or dinner after work because 8pm was too late. Going to sleep before 11pm was totally crazy unless you hiked all day, did yoga and went out dancing the night before. Furthermore, can I just say, even as a mother you can't look at another kid and think, "oh my kid will never do that"...pffft! Because guess what? Your kid might do even worse! Single people don't get what it is like to have a child and people with one child don't know what it's like with two kids and I, as a mother of two, can't even imagine what it would be like with three children or more.  It's exponentially difficult, particularly when they are under three.  My good friend Jeanne (a mother of two) always says, "once they are three you'll be having nice quiet dinners out with the kids, no problem".  That means we have only two years and three months to go".  Sheesh.

Abby is exhausting lately. Forget water boarding. All they need is a toddler to drive them insane and make them want to pull their hair out. She tries to tell me where to go, how to drive, where to park, what to wear, barges in on me in the shower, the toilet, my bed, won't let me hold Leo for longer than two minutes, is causing messes or trouble when I'm with her brother, or into something, somewhere, somehow that she shouldn't be when I need to leave the room for one tenth of a second, insists upon wearing ridiculous, mismatched outfits, takes off her clothes randomly, her diaper, pees on the floor (once in the cabana bathroom) yet claims she deserves a piece of "potty" candy, will only eat cheese, crackers, fruit snacks by the dozen and must be spoon fed or coaxed into eating healthier foods, refuses to take her naps on non-school days yet when she does actually fall asleep will nap for two plus hours, pushes my buttons relentlessly, misbehaves mostly in my presence and not in the presence of grandmas or nannies, will not LISTEN, even after warnings, even after asking nicely, even after a threat, she just cannot or will not stop her body, she is stubborn as hell and if she asks me WHY? one more time I think I might punch the wall.  All of this of course is taken by me with a large *sigh*...

Sometimes I wonder why we don't eat our young. Kidding. Being a parent isn't for the impatient. You work so hard every day to do and give what's best for your child and what do they do in return? Scream and cry and moan and whine and yell and spit and bite and hit and pinch. Well, there's that and then there's the simple moments in between when you're done with the bath-brushing-teeth-and-hair-putting-on-pajamas war that you roll around on the floor with your child and they giggle and laugh during your tickle fight and ask you for "more" and "more" and "more"...all of a sudden you realize that you've just been laughing and giggling yourself.  It makes going to sleep knowing you have to do it all over again the next day a little easier.

It's Erev Rosh Hashanah tonight. Shana Tova! Happy New Year. May you have a good and sweet year. This is going to be the start of a sweet new year for me. I can feel it.

Oh and I'm going to Vegas for a client dinner with David Saturday night but have coordinated it so that I am now flying with him Friday and returning solo on Sunday. Selfishly that means I get to lay in a beautiful hotel bed and sleep and sleep and sleep.  Now that is certainly sweet.