Maybe NOT "The Best Days Of My Life"

Holy Crap!  My new life as a full time working mom is overwhelming and often times a struggle.

For 5 days, I get up at around 6:30ish, get myself in the shower, get ready for work.  IF Jason is home, he helps get Elise dressed (I fix her hair, due his lack of styling skills...unless I'm running behind), and gets her cups and lunch in her bag.  Maybe every other morning, we persevere through one (or two) of her tantrums before even leaving the driveway.

If he's not home (which was the case several mornings due to fires), I do all of the above, battle with her to get her in her car seat to head to daycare while breaking into a sweat before leaving the driveway.

After daycare drop off, I head to work.  There, I put in an 8 hour work day.  Run from work to the daycare and pick up Elise.

We recently switched to taking Elise to The Christian Learning Center at the Baptist church here in town since her previous sitter was unable to keep her through the summer.  The church is within walking distance from the fire station so Jason is able to walk over and pick her up.  I still have to drive to and from there for pick ups and drop offs since he drives a city vehicle and as of now cannot have a car seat in it.  So that's a little inconvenient, but it is what it is.

Once we get home I get Elise unloaded and get her bag in the house to unpack, and then attempt to change my clothes.  About that same time, round 1 of the tantrums start.  Between the few hours that we get home and she goes to bed I make her dinner, attempt to feed her, get her a bath, and get her ready for bed.  We typically experience tantrums through the majority of that.  When I say tantrums.... I mean SCREAMING, kicking, hitting, throwing, and laying on the floor face down refusing to get up.  And DON'T even think about picking her because she stiffens up so that it's next to impossible to get a secure hold on her.

I do not cook dinner for me and Jason.  That's at the bottom of the priority list.  My energy and patience is pretty much exhausted from working all day and trying not to have a complete melt down from the unpleasant home environment I suffer through for several hours 5 days a week.  Some nights, cereal at 9pm is as good as it gets.

If Jason is home he'll make her cups and get her lunch for the following day.  If not, after she goes to bed I use the last bit of energy I have to drag my ass off the couch and prepare juice and milk cups, bag up chicken nuggets, make sure there's extra clothes, snacks, and her blanket in her bag.  Then sometimes, I look in the laundry room at the overflowing laundry basket and cuss at it...  then I wonder what it would cost to drop all that crap off at the cleaners?

After DAYS go by of this, I realize why people drink.  I went to the beer store two days in a row to get more wine.  Obviously alcohol is not the solution and I try to ask myself  "what would Jesus do?"  But, isn't there wine and bread at communion?  Yep...  So then the world is right again.

I have been wracking my brain trying to figure where all of Elise's intense emotions stem from.  Approaching the terrible two's?  Lack of full time attention from me?  Lack of sufficient rest?  All of the above?

How in God's name do people do this with more than one child?  They must never sleep.

I have been trying to make a personal goal of being IN BED between 9pm and 9:30pm.  But, more often times than not, I climb into bed and glance at the clock.  Freaking 10:30pm!!  What the hell happened in the last hour and a half that prevented me from getting in bed?  Sitting on the couch in a coma looking for my sanity?  Probably.

I have just spent all of this time complaining which I don't like.  I like my job, I feel comfortable about Elise being at the church during the day, but I wish the few hours I get to spend with her in the evening would be less painful and more pleasant for all of us.

And don't even get me started on the drama with selling our house and getting the new one built, or else this blog will turn into a major suckfest and no one will read it.  But, I'm surviving... I'm still alive.  Today anyway.