Thanks #15

We went out tonight. Brian was gone to meetings and my kitchen looked like this and I never promised to provide hot meals for better or worse. It felt like a vacation. A needed one too, since my sink looks how my soul feels. Grouchy, irritable. You try to rise to the occasion and dig deeper and all you find is more crap. 

Chandler's been impossible for a few days. I don't even want to talk about it, but it's worn me down. Even when I make the "best" parenting move, he doesn't respond well. While I don't think that's my signal to ditch patience and get rude, you might think so looking on. And then I start to hear exasperation and clear annoyance in their tone with each other (and me) and I know exactly where they heard it. 

These lows are exacerbated by grumpy kids, but I'm certainly capable of pulling them single-handedly. It usually goes like this: telling Brian about everything that drives me crazy from the time he arrives home til he leaves again. Lucky guy. Even when I try to formulate a nice way to say something, I just can't do it. It comes out meanish. Or mean. Stuff that normally rolls off, clumps up on me, until I feel crazy desperate to see some measurable improvement somewhere. But then, instead of nesting in a humming, wearing an apron way, I nest like a freak-show with steam coming out my ears before passing out exhausted and/or overwhelmed after a whole five minutes. 

If you're thinking it might be my hormones, I'm sure you're right. I thought that was a big fat excuse before I got pregnant. Nope. Hormones are real. I think hormones are like different color glasses. Week 1 - you're wearing sunglasses inside so you can hardly see and usually you're in some pain. Week 2 - you have rosy glasses and all engines are firing. You're whippin' out projects and hugging the people you love. Week 3 - you get blue shades, which don't have the pep of the rosy ones, but you'll take the mellow. It's more smooth sailing, until...Week 4 - Someone slapped on some yellow panic glasses because everything is awful and urgent and is never, ever getting better. Especially if it's up to you because when you try to take action, you lock your keys in the car or drive across town to return an item without the item, which only makes you fume harder. 

So a vacation was needed. And granted. I've decided, we're destined for the bad weeks as well as the good, whether we like it or not. Whether it's caused by hormones or not (men). If that's the case, I just need to get through the hard ones with as little damage to myself and others as possible. That usually looks like slowing down and being gentler with myself, which trickles out to people around me. Giving myself a break. Telling myself I'm enough. Even when I can't accomplish a single, simple thing. I am enough.