And I'm the Beast...

I've been holding in a lot of emotion for the last few weeks. I thought I was doing okay until I hurled a handful of plastic blocks from their perch on the stairs -- thankfully not AT anyone. But they made a hella racket.

That's not all.

There was lots of yelling, mostly by me. The yelling was followed by threats, and then one day I stomped away from Will, locked the gate at the bottom of the stairs and told him not to bother me for 30 minutes OR ELSE. [Note: our enforcement of the no-nap "quiet time" was not going well.]

He didn't bother me, and I did get to finish reading one article and a cup of coffee. But I felt like crap smeared on the bottom of someone's shoe. I really did. I was so utterly, horribly ashamed. And then I baked one of these, ate a slice, and felt somewhat more calm...

Damn those blueberries were good.

Anyway, the point is that I thought I was SO handling the stay-at-home mom thing. So on top of groceries and chores and playdates. But this lasted for about, oh, almost one month to the day since my last post here. Then an odd thing happened. I lost control. It was Lord of the Flies over here. And then I got anxious. Reaaalllyy anxious. And snippy. And kind of depressed because I was like, "OMG, this is freakin' snowballing! I'll never get out from under the chaos!"

When this happens, I tend to go into fight or flight mode. I try, try, try harder. I feel worse. I am the typical overachiever in every silly thing. Can I make the bed better than I did yesterday? Yes! I can! Can I have dinner prepped, have an educational but fun morning with the kids, and the laundry done? Yes! I can, dammit!

But here's the thing. All the DOING makes me such a serious bitch who gets annoyed at her kids for just being kids. Cause, you know, kids sometimes get in the way of all that doing. Duh. When I get like that, I even bore myself. Honestly. It makes me want to hit a Cornell frat party on the way home from swim lessons at the Y and just LET LOOSE.

And the worse part is that I stop enjoying my time home with the boys. I'm almost positive they stop enjoying their time home with me... However, the lesson here for me is NOT to do nothing, or lower my expectations (though, yeah, I need to). The lesson is that I need to find a way to make time in the day, or the week, for only caring about or doing something for ME. At the end of the week, after all that DOING, I am a mess. I need my books, my writing, my something. I need to have no one touching, or asking, or wanting from me. I need space.

Yes, this kind of space... I know for all you experienced SAHMs, this may be another "duh." But riddle me this. How the hell does one do it?*

*And not feel like crap smeared on the bottom of a shoe.