A Moment To Calm Down

Having kids really takes it out of you, both physically and mentally - and no I don't mean 'having' as in giving birth to them, I mean keeping them.

My neighbour said to me a while back, her daughter was such a pain in the ass at one point that "I didn't know whether to throw her out the window or throw myself out..."

And that's how i'm feeling right now.

I'm writing this in tears at the peak of a nine day stint of bedtime battles. If the girls aren't battling with me - they're battling with eachother. To the point where one girl gets tired and starts screaming at the other one to shut up, until it all becomes one big joke and they both resume their whinging and moaning for attention.

The whole thing can go on for hours and upsets both girls at some point as well as me, since it's either E.M standing at the end of her cot attention-crying for an hour or she's trying to sleep while J.R fidgets around, taking out toys, deliberately making noise to wake up her sister, or more recently calling out for me and lying.

Telling me she's hungry/dirty or she's hurt herself.

This usually leaves me in bed unable to sleep or just lacking any quality sleep in general, and then there's the early mornings.

With all the disruption and constant arguing, it's easy to lose hold of your emotions. I found myself shouting at Daddy tonight for this very reason. Through no fault of his own he is at the receiving end of all my anger and frustration. Had our relationship been weaker we would have fallen out bigtime. But since it's coming up four years strong, we're past that. We know a lack of sleep makes anyone cranky and as he clearly points out when our conflict is over, he doesn't snap back at me - he knows what i'm going through, and I always apologise.