FRUSTRATIONS!!!!

I don't know if mothering comes naturally to some people, but I am not one of those people. We had a really good week last week (Spring Break), but yesterday and today have been awful. Sometimes (like now) I feel like I am completely at the end of my rope and I don't know what to do. I love my kids more than anything, but when I spend almost literally every waking hour with them, I start to take them for granted and I get to the point that I don't even enjoy being with them at times.

I've thought a lot about this in the past few months, wondering why I get so frustrated. Moms with little kids have lives are very one-dimensional. Day in and day out, my life is the same; feeding, cleaning up, playing, changing diapers, putting up with fits, correcting bad behavior, on and on. The only time I really get to spend focused attention on my own interests are while the boys are sleeping. And I'd say that each day I get an average of about 30 minutes of "alone" time....while both boys are asleep. Some days it's longer, but other days there's no free time at all (until the boys are asleep at night). And even when both boys ARE napping, I am inevitably spending much of that time doing laundry or some other housework.

Then when we go out to do errands, it is usually frustrating. Gone are the days when I could just run into places quickly; with two kids, I basically have to pick one place to go every day, whether it be Target, Kroger, or some other place. It is almost impossible to get the boys out of the car more than a couple of times, before one of them gets fussy or needs a nap. Grocery store trips used to be pretty easy with Grant, but lately he shreiks in the store and has started throwing things out of the shopping cart. He gets bored and wants to get down, but that would be a complete disaster!! So staying home gets old, but going out is hard too!

Then there are days like yesterday, where nothing seemed to go right. Grant spilled Dean's water bottle all over our bed in the morning, then he poured two containers of red sprinkles all over the kitchen floor and living room (while I was trying to put Drew down for a nap). Later he poured my water glass all over his tool bench. Not to mention the normal things that happen every day, like when he screams "NO!" when something doesn't go his way. I spent so much time yelling at Grant yesterday.....which of course then makes me feel even worse. And after all, I'm the one who left the pantry door open so he could reach for the sprinkles, and I'm the one who left my water glass within his reach. So I'm blaming him for being a normal, inquisitive two-year-old, when I'm making it easy for him to get into those things!

I tell Dean about every three weeks that I think I'm about to lose my mind. He tries to help (and he is very helpful with Grant when he's home), but he has a really stressful job right now too. None of our family is close, and I am weird about asking friends to watch the boys. And....Drew is eating baby food now but won't take a bottle. So it would be hard to leave him for more than a few hours anyway. Last Saturday, Grant and I got our hair cut; Dean took the boys home after Grant's haircut. An hour later, my haircut was over and I had to rush home to feed Drew because he was hungry and crying. I was hoping to stay out a little bit and do some things by myself, but no such luck!

I think the main point is that my entire identity right now is my kids. I feel guilty complaining about that, but sometimes it's exhausting and draining having only one thing that I do. When I feel like I'm doing a bad job at being a mom, there's nothing I can do to take a break from it, and there's not another aspect of my life at which I feel like I'm doing well. That's not to say that I don't have other interests......I just don't have time to do them!!

I feel a little better just writing all of this out. I know other people feel this same way sometimes too. I just tend to blog about good stuff going on, but my blog would not be accurate if I didn't talk about my frustrations too! Now I need to go figure out how to clean my (almost) brand new diaper bag. I opened it this AM when I was getting Grant's stuff ready for school, and there was a horrible smell. A sippy cup with apple juice had leaked all over it, and it was obviously a few days ago because of the smell. Apparently you can only spot-clean it....wonderful! I have no idea if I will be able to get the smell out. AAAAHHHHH!!

Okay......back to happy Alissa tomorrow (hopefully!).