I Need To Recharge

I've been meaning to blog for days now. I've sat down to do it, and then something happens. And I can’t catch up. It's not that I feel I'm experiencing a set back in life, I just literally feel like I can’t catch up because the job never ends. No matter how much I get done at work or how crappy of a day I’ve had at work, I’m never done working. By that I mean that I don’t get to come home from work and sit on the couch and get a few minutes because there is my other job as instant mom. There are no minutes to sit down, relax and try to catch my breath.

I need to recharge. I simply have not been able to fully recharge in the couple of kid-free hours I get alone to myself every Sunday (And that is if Jane doesn’t call to cancel.)

My fiancé is on vacation this week. I thought... I really thought that it would be helpful in giving me a break. But it’s not really. I don’t have to drop the kids off at school or pick them up. But I still have to do the other stuff I do every day. There are still crying fits, and yelling, and having to find things because the boys don’t thoroughly look hard enough when they’ve lost something, and there are drippy noses, and chattering, and constant reminding.

That last part has been the teetering of my patience lately. I think my patience is broken. Although I think it’s more the fact that I’m tired of saying things, repeating things, reminding of things multiple times. I don’t mind repeating myself a second time, and I’ll hold my tongue and remind a third time, but when it’s constantly reminding of things (we’re talking I’ve said it over and over and over again) it’s really starting to just frustrate me. We’ve constantly had to remind the older boys that “You need to put your toys/things/equipment away someplace that you can easily find it and so Younger Boy can’t get to it,” – it’s been about six months since I’ve been preaching that one.

And Younger Boy is in this phase…have I told you about this phase? We’ll he’s decided that he’s incapable of performing any actions without my permission or without me having told him the words to do so. This includes going to the bathroom, blowing his nose, turning the light off or on in a room and closing the door. We’re at the point where we are trying to ignore him until he does it himself…but that is a drain. An example, he stands there in the doorway to his room telling me “I have to go potty.” He says this about 10–15 times before he comes and stands next to me. “I have to go potty” another 10–15 times. Then a “I just have to go potty,” as he finally turns and walks to the bathroom sputtering a couple more “I just have to go potty” phrases. Right now he’s sitting in the doorway to his room saying, “The lights off.” He’s only said it about five times…but this expression of ‘I’m helpless and can’t do anything without you” is driving me up the wall. Especially because he was doing all of this just fine about a month ago, without asking me permission/needing my verbal OK on it. This phase came out of no where … WTF?!?

That’s motherhood, right? They go through phases? They’ll get it eventually, right? Because I’m so exhausted…I’m so exhausted of having to find everything, all the time. I’m so exhausted of having to remind them of everything, all the time. I’m so exhausted of hearing the same phrase uttered 20 times when he knows, and has been told he doesn’t need my permission. I feel like a broken record. And really, I’m not bitter, I’m not furious, I’m not about to leave. But I’m just so frustrated that it’s seems like they’re not listening and understanding. It’s the whole “in one ear and out the other” deal.

Where was I? I need to recharge. But I don’t know how to recharge in my new lifestyle. I’ve been trying all kinds of things, trust me. None of them really work, because at some point in the month I always seem to end up back here. Or maybe that’s just the new deal I signed up for. I’m not necessarily experiencing a feeling of hopelessness, but more a feeling of being pushed to the limit and oh, so exhausted. There has to be some sort of balance, right?

How do you recharge with kids in the house? I’m beginning to understand that being a stepmother is not only the most challenging thing I’ve ever taken on, but that I’m having to re-invent myself (again) to a lifestyle that I not only jumped into headfirst, but am learning as I go along. Not that any parent really understands what they’re getting into when they have kids, but it’s kind of rough when you’re the new parent to kids that have been around a couple of years…and you feel like you ought to already know more than you think you do. Or maybe I’m just not giving myself enough credit. I’m guilty of that often because I always think that there’s someway to better myself. The learning process is never over in my mind.

I enforce my positive thinking daily, and look for happy little moments. That’s what gets me through the day. Because what I've learned is that life happens, no matter what. And you need to find something that is going to help you get through it.