A Rant, A Wall and Go the F&^% to Sleep

Do you mind if I rant for a few moments here?  If you do mind, kindly click off and find somewhere else to go.

Thanks so much.

My husband's been off gallivanting (aka working) in New Zealand and Australia for the past 11 days. Which is all fine and good. It is.  And it's been going really quite well at home base with the boys.  They have been unreasonably well behaved and I somehow found a reserve of patience that I had no idea about.  We've gone out to 'real' restaurants for dinner...the kind with actual menus and a liquor license.  Where you sit down in a nice booth and there are candles lit.  Which were promptly put out by moi.  I've seen what their father can do with one innocent candle at a dinner table so I'm not risking sitting at one with his 3 and 4 year old sons.

I've taken them to the movies and parks.  We've been invited over to a couple of our neighbours homes for dinner.  Which I certainly never expect but appreciate more than I can put into words.  Because if you've ever been alone with your children for long stretches at a time when that dinner time rolls around and you're used to having nice family meals around the table it can tend to be a bit lonesome when your husband isn't there.  I'm not a person that ever feels easily lonely but dinner time?  Lil bit lonely.  Since John's been gone I've dealt with an ongoing situation at my son's school and was told by the teacher that he is 'just a really nice good kid'.  This of-course made my mother feathers fluff out.  I may have preened and clucked around with my neck out for a moment.  It's so nice to hear that from another adult but especially from a teacher.

Someone (a parent) recently said they 'hate it when people complain about how hard parenting is'.  But you know what?  THAT'S CAUSE IT IS.  And if you're doing it right it should be motherlovin' hard.  Not all the time of-course - not every minute or even every day.  But if you can say you don't find parenting hard you're doing something really, really wrong.  Or your child is just abnormally angelic.  And if that's the case we can never be friends.  Sorry.

Do you know what else someone (another parent) asked me after being without my husband for a week as we discussed how fast the week went by and I said a, "Thank you GOD." to that?

Do you really want to know?  

They actually asked me, "Really?  You find it hard when John's gone?"  That person was lucky I didn't have a cast iron pan handy because I was about to hand out a Rapunzel whoopass on them.  Wow huh?  Just...wow.

And then.  Then!  The one day my lovely father and his wife came to visit and I had to run out and grab some groceries as they played outside...do you know what happened???!!!  I came home about 40 minutes later to my Dad's wife and her broken shoulder.  I don't know how it happened because I wasn't there (guilt, guilt and more guilt) but it had something to do with my sweet damn dog's leash being wrapped around her ankle and then taking off after a stick that Adrian had thrown.  The thing is...before I left, when she asked for Riley's leash I knew, I  knew (because I have psychic powers)  that it was a bad, bad very bad idea to have Riley outside without me around.  So people.  Listen to me right now.  Read. the. words. that. are. comin' out of my fingertips....listen to your gut.  Always.

Every time I haven't I've regretted it.

Julie...I hope you're doing okay :(

Oh....you probably thought I was done ranting there didn't you?

WELL THINK AGAIN.  

This morning dawned a little later than usual.   This is a good sign.  That good sign lied it's little ass off to me.  It lured me in and then sunk me faster than a...than a...I don't know what but it brought me down yo.  And fast.

Today was challenging.  My children seem to be coming apart at the seams.  They are not listening.  At all.  They're fighting with each other.  Like sitting on one another's heads fighting.  Like hitting, screeching and being perfect little assholes to each other fighting.

Tonight was a complete gong show at bed time.  I was so beyond exhausted I actually put them in their beds, walked to my room and closed my bedroom door (which happens to have a child proof door handle on it...for reasons that not need be questioned).  There was crying and crying.  And banging on my door.  And more crying and more door banging.

It was a perfect night to yell out the lines from the book Go the F*&% to Sleep somewhat aggressively to my children through the crack of my door.  It really was.  That was actually the  mantra screaming in my head when I couldn't take the crying and door banging any more and was forced to lay down with them at intervals.

You could call it concrete, or stone.  Metal or brick.  But whatever that damn wall is made of, I've hit it tonight going at a fierce rate.  I'm done, kaput, finished and just plain kphflttt.  I've got 48 hours to go and I'm hoping it's like ripping off a band aid.

Quick with that inevitable sting that thankfully fades fast.

Here's hoping.

In the meanwhile I'll raise an (oversized) glass of wine to that and *ching* "Cheers Mates!"