Is It Over Yet?

The last month has been really rough...I mean REALLY rough. I don't even know how to describe it without sounding like I can't 'handle' being a Mom. Yes, I am an anxious person and an excessive worrier...but I know that I have good Mom qualities too. I'm a Mom who can laugh and have fun with her kids...I'm a Mom who takes good care of her children and always has their best interests at heart...BUT, what we're going through now is something that is totally and completely WEARING.ME.OUT. Some days I want to cry thinking that Jamaica is still 5 months away because we really need the break NOW.

Every day I tell myself things will get better...that this can't last forever...that some of the things we experience now won't be quite as difficult when the kids get a little older...unfortunately, the warm fuzzy feeling that those thoughts bring to me don't last very long........because reality is in my face, all the time.

So what are we dealing with here? Well, let's start with illness. A week before we officially changed daycares Will got strep...then I got strep...then Lili got strep...and in the midst of all of that we had a stomach bug cycling through the 4 of us as well. I truly believe the military pumped Drew's body full of super-vaccines or something because he RARELY gets sick and even when he does, it's not all that bad. In the end the family spent 2 weeks getting through all of that. Then came the runny noses, which haven't gone away...and now, another stomach bug. We've spent the entire weekend dealing with diarrhea, stomach cramping and sleep deprivation.

If you take away all of the illness, that would have 'helped' us...however we have also been struggling with a huge daycare transition and growth/developmental spurts. When Will started at the center he basically stopped sleeping. He goes to bed fine, but proceeds to wake up 1-2 times per night screaming...not to mention his internal alarm goes off at 4:30am every morning. We try to be strong and always let him cry for awhile...but when it starts waking Lili up too, it's hard to let it continue for very long. Most nights we will go in to check on him...change his diaper (which has usually leaked)...give him hugs and put him back down. His early morning awakening we do the same, however he usually responds with an hour of screaming until he either falls back asleep (finally!), or we get him up to get ready for our day. He seems to be doing o.k. at daycare, with the exception of a few not-so-fun days where he either had a lot of screaming spells or cried the whole day. I try to peek in on him, before he sees me, at the end of the day and I always find him smiling and playing with the other kids. I think overall it's just a big change. We have also discovered that he has gained 2.5lbs in the last month alone (he is now only 1.5lbs less than Lili) and his vocabulary is EXPLODING! I remember Lili doing the same, but she just wasn't quite as.....'feisty' about it...

For the most part Lili has been doing well and surviving the illness and daycare changes like a champ. She does have a lot of moments where she will tell the teacher that she misses her Mommy and she's still very clingy with me...but in general she seems happy and hasn't been giving us too much trouble.........until the last week....when she decided that her room was scary and she couldn't sleep alone. She is absolutely petrified if you leave her to fall asleep on her own in her own bed and has a holy major freakout. Once asleep, she will stay in her bed.....until around midnight or 1am, when she wakes up a bit...realizes where she is......and has another holy major freakout. This usually results in her ending up in our bed. I mind her being in our bed less than I mind her not going to bed at night.

Between the two kids and their 'phases', I am exhausted........and both Drew and I have little to no patience, which is tough when you are dealing with a 2 year old and a 3 year old. The sickness and growth spurts have caused a lot more sleeplessness for all of us, which makes our awake hours that much more difficult. We're all overtired...not feeling well...and at our wits end. I am PRAYING that things change soon and God gives us a break. Sometimes I think about how people believe that God only gives us what he thinks we can 'handle'........which I used to believe......but now I'm not so sure. Yes, so far we are surviving...so maybe that's His definition of 'handling' it.......but I hate that we are barely pulling through. I feel like everything we do right now is half assed because we don't have the energy to do anymore. If that meets 'His' standards then fine...but it doesn't meet mine. I don't want to be snapping at my kids all the time and always feeling like sitting down to cry is a much better option than anything else out there. I want to be happy and I want my kids to be happy and I want to feel like we can survive the ups and downs in life, but ultimately do that without any of us breaking. I pray that future struggles will be easier than this one and end a whole heck of a lot sooner!