I Suck as a Mom!!

I've. Had. It.

Every single moment that I'm at home with Abby is a battle. Yes, she's cute and funny and silly and smart and I love her with every fiber of my being...however the bad moments outweigh the good right now by about 8 to1. She does nothing without a fight. Yells all day long. Doesn't want to take a nap, eat her dinner, take a bath, go to bed, get dressed, have her hair combed, etc, etc. I'm exhausted.

Yesterday was a typical day. I was working early so the alarm was set for a little after 4...so Abby woke up at 3:30 of course and needed a million things; her fan on, a hug, a kiss, a cuddle, a song ("No Mommy, sing it right. Louder. Not so loud. Just medium"), a drink of water. And I complied with them all, as it was just faster than having a "discussion" about the fact that it was 3 frickin' 30 in the morning! Back to bed I went for a blessed 20 minutes. After work, I came home and found the only bright spot to my day...my awesome mom had done my dishes and Trey was down for his nap!! It was time for Abby to take her nap. She screamed her usually blood-curdling "I don't wanna nap" scream at the top of the stairs (right outside Trey's door) and got in trouble for that. Then I told her I'd only read one book. After the one book she threw another berserk-o fit about not getting more books. So we had a LONG chat about what kind of behavior I expect from her. She did a lot of nodding and said okay...obviously she was just trying to get me to stop talking as she didn't actually plan on behaving in any nice way that day.

All the screaming woke Trey up, surprise surprise. So downstairs we went to get some lunch. He and I had a pretty good couple of hours together...mostly because I didn't really do anything so he got loads of my attention. Then when Abby got up things really got going.

She wasn't downstairs for 2 minutes (not an exaggeration) before both kids were screaming these horrible ear-piercing, shrieking screams that made fingernails on a chalkboard sound like Mozart...all because Trey stood next to her. I told them to stop it. Then Trey touched Abby so she whalloped him a good one and I told her that we DO NOT HIT and then she started screaming at me about that. I told her to apologize which she tried to do but since she'd just hit him, Trey wasn't going to let her give him a hug. Well, that just sent her over the edge (I thought she'd already tumbled over it but nope, it got worse). Then both kids were trying to get in my lap, which I wasn't about to let either of them do while the scream-fest continued so I unstuck Trey's hands from my legs (remember, I'm made of Velcro!) and told them both to go find something to do and leave me alone for 2 minutes so I could find my hearing again. Neither thought that was a great idea and the screaming doubled in intensity....and well...I lost it! I yelled at them to "Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!" Oooooooooh, not cool. And as a double oooh, it did not have the desired effect and only made the screaming louder still. Ugh. Not a proud moment on my part.

And wouldn't you know it, that was also the moment that the chicken finally finished defrosting in the microwave and the oven was ready to go. But I could not get the little people to leave me alone long enough to cut the chicken for the delicious dinner that I was going to make. So I apologized to the kids for yelling and they both asked me to sit with them so to the rocker we went. I put on a movie and they sat quietly until Jerry got home and I made corndogs for dinner. Things went okay for most of the evening. However, the velcro does not disappear when Jerry comes home. The kids can be sitting right next to him and if they want something they'll come find me instead of ask him. By bedtime I was exhausted (remember the 3:30 start to my day) and not interested in putting either kid to bed. Trey is okay with whomever, Abby is not. She only wants me to put her to bed. I refused to do it last night so Jerry had to and it was another round of screaming from her about that. Seriously, how can one sweet little baby turn into such a scream-filled toddler.

And today is going no better. They were okay this morning but she threw another screaming fit when it was time for a nap which woke Trey up after a ridiculously short nap. I did another sucky mom thing and left him upstairs fussing in his crib while I ate lunch (leftover corndog) and tried to recharge my used up batteries. As I have typed this he has gotten in trouble 382 times for touching things he's not allowed to touch on the desk and has crawled on/off my lap 147 times and managed to find a non-washable marker to color his lips and the table with.

I don't know if you all have peachy kids who are generally well-behaved or if you're all just writing about the fun times but if you do have sweet, gentle, mindful kids...lucky you.