I’m bad about updating. I was hoping to turn over a new leaf, but it’s just not happening.
Why?

I’ll be honest. I’m overwhelmed…and tired…
This year feels hard in inexplicable ways. When I consider everything that I went through a few years ago and the losses that other people have incurred, I am ashamed to complain.

But..I feel like life is a constant struggle for me lately. Yes, I am grateful for everything that I have…I truly, truly am…but I’m also tired.

Andrew has hit the teen years with a completely unanticipated lack of respect and anger. He drops the f-bomb like it was nothing. Now, if Zoe is pounding on the door to the bathroom to demand that I open it during my few moments of peace and solitude each day, she screams “open the f***ing door”. Oh. My. It is terrible. I’m so appalled. I felt certain that something like this would never, ever happen to us. Clearly, my naive idea about just loving my children enough was off base. He treats me with incredible disrespect and anger…and though I see the anger and disappointment about certain things in his life…it hurts when he treats me like this and lately I just can’t be the adult about it.

Here’s my kid who was one of a handful of kids who made the headmaster’s list for grades 7-12 popping off at me like I’m the enemy…and instead of embracing him and trying to understand his pain, I’m acting like as big of a jerk in my own frustration and hurt. When I look at him, I still see the little curly-haired toddler…the baby in the bassinet…my first baby…the child that made me a mother…and my heart feels like it is breaking.

Amanda is my saving grace right now. She wants to cook with me every night. She talks to me. I am beginning to see how our relationship can be when she is a grown woman and I like it…a lot. It seems like we can talk about pretty much everything…she is open with me and I feel like I can share certain things with her. There is nothing like having her stand beside me while we cook together..having her set the table…and feel like we are both doing this together. I love this and I hope it doesn’t end for a long time…though I know inevitably as she stumbles into the teen years further that it is likely to end.

Alex is turning 10 tomorrow….TEN..and he’s starting to become difficult. I’m so shocked by this. He has always been my happy-go-lucky kid…always. Everything has always rolled off of his back and all of the sudden I’m getting some lying, sass and tween behavior. I thought I could escape it with him..but I can’t.

I don’t feel emotionally equipped to handle these challenges on my own anymore. It is too hard to do alone…and Thomas and I truly are parenting alone. Actually…all of the tough stuff is on me. Thomas is just too busy and stressed with work, etc. I don’t feel like I get a break from the constant stress of parenting.

While Andrew, Amanda and Alex are at school, I’m dealing 24/7 with Zoe…who is such a wonderful little girl…but is so high needs right now. This is my only child that I would say is going through “terrible twos”. In the past, I have always said “terrific twos” and felt like it was the fault of the mom if the child was terrible. Ahhh, payback! Or else..I’m just becoming a bad mom. LOL That is very possible! Zoe thinks she is a princess…because we have told her this. I love her with a fierceness…that is at a gut, primal level…and at the same time, her whining and crying when she doesn’t get her way makes me want to leap from my deck into the frozen waters of our pond…head first. Sometimes it is just more than I can take.

If I don’t have her in my field of vision all of the time, she will get the brand new container of cookies out and then pour them on the floor…so that the dog gets to share them with her…she shrieks hysterically when Dora the Explorer ends or if I don’t immediately meet her need to watch the Mouse movie or give her Alex’s gameboy.

My brain is tired.

Aidan wants to play…and he has no one to play with. Zoe isn’t interesting to him and Alex, who he idolizes…doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. (Alex, if you are 20 years older and are reading this now…you be NICE to your brother. He admires you and adores you…he NEEDS you. This falls on deaf ears now…but maybe someday?)

Being a mom is hard. The hard part is not the kids. I love them in a way that I can never explain. I wouldn’t give up being their mom for any job..nothing…

I do wish, however that I had more social opportunities built into my life. I spend every day all by myself. Most days, the only adult interaction that I have is a text message from dh at the end of the day asking me if he should bring something home with him when he leaves the hospital.

I feel….so…..alone. Many of the people in my life work…and they are pretty hyperfocused on their jobs…I feel like a footnote in my own life many days.

To add to this…well…I worked for over 2 years on a lab manual for a class that I was teaching at our State U. A new PhD swooped in, asked for my disk, changed my text slightly and…published it this Fall. I just found out about it. I’m not mentioned anywhere even though he took my intellectual property, changed it and then published it as his own.

Then I helped build a german program from the ground up. I met with the head of the German dept multiple times, wrote a letter to the board of directors when asked, provided all curriculum material…and then didn’t even get a mention. Hell…I even got an article written for this guy in the newspaper using my connections. Now, it is his baby…he is taking all of the credit.

I feel tired of being the dawkter’s wife.

I dream of the day that people will recognize my husband because he is…my husband…instead of always saying “Oh, you’re Tom’s wife”.

I’m crabby…I know.

This all follows a terrible, terrible ob-gyn appt. where I had to have an on-the-spot endometrial biopsy… . It was of course normal…but…the appointment was such a disaster that I’ll have to write about it another day. When by gyn mentioned the possibility of endometrial cancer, I had a terrible panic attack. I couldn’t breath and I had panic from my toes to the tip of my head. “It is the good cancer”. Gee, thanks.

I’ve already HAD the good cancer.

I’ll get a grip…someday…I promise.