Warning: back off

Sometimes at the end of the day, you look at the sweet restful faces of your children and say, "you suck the life out of me, you little monsters". 

Today I want to scream. I have had two very demanding kids. I can handle that, but once bed time hits, that's it. I'm of duty, so when one of them insists that I lay with them and scream hysterically if I leave, I feel like a hostage. That's MY time. If I don't get MY time, then the mommy they'll get tomorrow will be monster mommy. 

They are finally sleeping now but just like every night for the past 4 weeks, Andrew will wake up with a bad dream, three times and I'll have to deal with that. 

I just want a stretch of time where nothing and no one requires anything of me. Don't ask me to arrange a picnic, don't ask me to watch your kids, don't ask me to go out of my way to help, or be nice. Maybe next week if I get to sleep through the night at least once, I'll be able to do it, but not now. 

Nuts

I follow a blog called IKEA hacker and its people that transform ikea furniture into something else. Some are horrible, some brilliant. Why do we post so much online? Before the Internet you'd only be able to bore your friends with the nifty crafts you made. Now we all get to judge you. And judge I do. 

Today I did what moms refer to as "pushing" your kids. It's when you know they're tired but you treat them like boot camp troops. I had to go to 4 different stores and made it to 6, one being a pet store which can be rough. They put a huge tank of goldfish right at kid level with a completely open top. Dummies. 

So when I made it to my last stop, the LCBO, I had 2 kids throwing fits, one was because she wanted to go to the toy aisle. One shouldn't bring children into the bottle smashing convenience of a liquor store. One should also not do it at the end of a long morning. But I did. And then they sky opened up and the rain made the trek to the car even more delightful. Lunch was a blur and then I forced them to sleep. Screaming and crying ensued, then the beloved quiet. 

Then my awesome friend Claire was in the neighbourhood, brought me a latte and I had uninterrupted, quality chat time. 

... And now to prepare Paula's birthday dinner