This is why I look so tired.

SO TIred.  is how i feel.  And how I’ve felt much of this year.  I know I’m a broken record to people who ask, but it is what it is right now.   Max is now one year old and still wakes up at 4:30 in the morning expecting me to come and help him go back to sleep, usually with the boob.  I just want to sleep right through the night until a reasonable hour like 7,  (and I can’t believe I’m saying that 7 is a reasonable hour), for like 3 days in a row.  I remember when I used to think anything before 9 was too early.  This little Max is pushing, pushing pushing all handle. I need a week off the kids.  I need a BREAK.  I am so rarely ALONE, without a soul around me ALONE and now I crave it so much.  I’m desperate for it actually.  Sweet sweet silence.

Grant was away at a workshop two weekends ago, he’s home for this weekend and then he’s off to another workshop next weekend.  I’m feeling burnt out, and am sometimes fearful of being alone with the kids because they are SO MUCH WORK.  Max especially is really non-stop, exploring, seeking, discovering, feeling, tasting, smashing, throwing any and every object including wet handfuls of food, drumming, growling like a grizzly bear and shaking his head like he caught a salmon, screaming at the most earth shattering decibels, hurling himself off beds and couches and stairs at any chance he can get, standing and howling in his high chair like a dog, chin pointing straight up to the sky,  ’kicking’ balls with his hands as he crawls like lightening after them, trying to catch balls with his mouth like a dog does, basically exploring his body and his body in his environment.  Boys sure do have a lot of yang energy.

I’m on his level for a lot of the day, playing with him on my hands and knees, following him around, because now he tries to climb furniture and often succeeds.  I have to carry him a lot too, after shaking him off like dog, when I’m doing dishes or cooking and he pulls and pinches my legs and sometimes bites me to try to get me to pick him up so he can see what I’m doing.  And then of course he wants to participate in everything I’m doing, and he lunges at whatever he wants to get his hands on.  My back, needless to say is killing me and my left carrying arm is now a very strong vise.

So, this evening, I finally got three hours alone, which is A LOT,  and i could feel myself decompressing like a big stress balloon.  Now I feel like I’ve been hit by a sledge hammer, like I finally got my body to stay still for a period longer than half an hour during the day, and then all of a sudden, it’s only 6:30 pm, and it feels like it’s the middle of the night, like I really should be going to bed now.  I don’t think people work as hard as when they are conscious parents with small children.  I think it’s almost kinda crazy that I even signed up for this, and I obviously had NO CLUE what I was getting my self into.  I now try my best to tell the truth to anyone who wants to have kids or who are preparing to have them, even at the risk of being judged as an ungrateful woman who doesn’t deserve her children:  LIFE AS YOU KNOW IT IS NOW COMING TO A FAST END>  GO GET DRUNK, PAINT THE TOWN RED< JOIN A GROUP< DO SOMETHING YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO, QUICK!!!  I feel that there’s still this unspoken rule which I’m not willing to follow, which is ‘Don’t talk’, especially if it sounds anything like complaining or whining.  I think that some people think that talking about the challenges is somehow being negative.  Well it’s not.  I’ll tell you what’s negative.  When parents push and push and push down their real feelings, and then there’s this big huge pressure ball of resentment, and they eventually go NUMB because there’s too much anger and depression down there that it’s turned into  this big scary monster that they are too afraid to look at.  Occasionally I see the parents who have older kids who are gearing up, getting ready to do all the stuff they’ve been putting off and putting off  but more often than not these parents look like deer caught in headlights, paralyzed and numb with absolutely no idea what to do with themselves.  It’s like they forgot who they were. Or maybe they never knew.