Wailing hits a wall

Saturday night I ended up staying the night with my parents. I was just too tired to make the 40 minute drive home plus Hubby had a friend over watching a game so I knew he'd be no real help. Anyway, Littlest began to cry at 1:00am, no, not just cry - wail. This has been the case every night for close to 3 weeks. I'm so sleep deprived that I'm not sure when it started I remember going on a longish car trip on the 12th and being hopeful that I could nap since it had been several days since I had had a good night.
I digress. At 1:15am I called Hubby to say "Tomorrow night you are taking the kids and I don't care about your Monday" "OK" he said. I wisely shut off my cell after that. I'm sure he was bewildered, but had he wanted me to talk more I would have cussed him out - at a minimum. Not that I'm blaming him for the series of sleepless nights. It's more like no sleep and the wailing was making me rather angry feeling and I'm already just angry at him for lots of other things. Things I don't really bring up because they cause a fight. Anyway... That night was the worst so far, in terms of length of time wailing - 45 minutes. It's usually intermittent fussing, a couple of cries, and lots of thrashing around. At least that stuff is minimally invasive to your brain. Wailing, on the other hand, is grating and jarring at the same time. For you DIYers, imagine an impact drill and you're close.
It's a very lonely feeling to be trapped in a room with the reverberating wails of a child you would give your life for while you are saying, "Shut-up, shut-up, shut-up" under your breath the whole while. Especially if you have a particular aversion to the phrase "shut-up." After more than 30 minutes, I had to put Littlest down. I was exhausted in every way and nothing seemed to help anyhow. 10 minutes later I tried again and after another 5 minutes Littlest was finally asleep!
Last night, at 10pm I took 2 Tylenol PM and went to sleep around 11:30. Hubby took care of Littlest who had another fussy night. I only woke up at 3am, took another 1 T.PM and struggled to get out of bed at 8:30 this morning. Hubby slept until 9, oops! But like I said, I didn't care what that meant to his schedule. I could have had Friday night to do this if he hadn't decided to go to a bar at 11pm or Saturday if he hadn't had a friend over. I'm nowhere near caught up on sleep, but if you've been in this situation you know how much that 1 night helped my spirits. I actually had fun today! Now, if only we all can sleep through the night - all at the same time - life in general would improve.

I just don't understand him

The other night Hubby picks up some sandwiches for the 2 of us, for dinner. I have ordered a "wrap" or "rolled" sandwich with grilled chicken strips and ranch dressing while he had sliced turkey on wheat with 1000 isle dressing. He comes home and begins eating. I finish fixing the kids' dinner and retire to our bedroom to have a little quiet. I open up the wrapper and find it is not my order. I ask him what he ordered for me and he realizes he has my sandwich. In those few minutes, not only did he start eating a sandwich that was completely different than what he ordered, he ate more than half of it, and he was eating both halves stacked on top of each other. His consolation is to offer to go out and pick up a desert for me, but the offer includes that he waits until after his TV sports event comes to a break.

How do you eat so mindlessly that you don't notice that what you're putting in your mouth is completely different than what you're expecting? At the very least, you should notice after the first bite. How does dessert replace a healthy protein sandwich? How is it fair that I should have to wait nearly an hour before getting replacement food?

I don't understand his relationship with food. I don't understand how he complains so much about his weight, yet does nothing about it. I think he's put on about 130 pounds since we met. If I put on that much, or even a ratio of that much, there is no way he wouldn't be hounding me about it, especially if he had only gained 10 pounds in the same time. By the way, an equal ratio of weight gain would result in 208 pounds on my 5'2 frame.

I don't want to belittle him, but I don't know how to approach this issue - AT ALL. I mainly stay silent. He has asked me directly if his weight turns me off and I answered honestly. (It doesn't. However, I didn't add that it doesn't inspire me either.) I want to be a supportive wife in this, but he needs a kick in the butt. Well, really he needs that in many areas of his life - our life.

Anything I say is taken as offensive because he is not happy either. So, I just can't do anything, but watch his health, mental and physical, continue to decline. I guess it's not nothing, but I can only shop in a fairly healthful manner though I have no control of how much he eats or the fact that he persists in eating fast food every day for lunch. What is the spouse supposed to do?

6 degrees of separation

Why is it that I am able to keep a positive spin on things when they are happening to other people? If I was in their same situation I'd think or feel similarly. I met with 2 friends today that I'd really like to know better (yay). One was worried if a single witnessed event was a pattern for her sister when she is alone. I was able to think of a few different reasons why that may have happened, but if I was really worried about my sister I probably wouldn't be able to do that. The other said she had an irrational fear when she was a child and I was able to think of a plausible reason why it might not be. In my experience, when I believe my feelings are irrational, I feel more out of control in general. And I feel guilty for having that feeling in the first place. I have no delusions of being a psycho-anaylist, but I hope even that seed helped. I have a big fear, I actually hope it's irrational. I can't even talk about it to anyone other than my husband. It would be nice if someone said "No, this detail of your life makes it not so likely to happen."

If I was able to achieve this separation from my problems would I be able to handle them better? Able to solve them? My issues, I think, are normal: stress, marriage, household, children, money, health. I'm not so self absorbed to think I have a terrible life, nor am I still afraid that I'm the only one who feels this way. I still feel these things and I still feel guilty for feeling them. C'est la vie?

There it goes again

Perhaps blogging is an art form. If so, that is why it seems to allude me. I am a very frustrated artist/crafter/decorative artist/writer/poet. You name it and I have some interest in it, but can't do it. From the time I was able to critique myself, I haven't liked the art that I've produced. I see these beautiful things in my head and for one reason or another I am not able to reproduce them. My attempts are often left unfinished or put in the trash. I'm always lacking in some thing: time, materials, skill, or ability. Then frequently, even when I do have those things, the image flits away from me like a butterfly. It's always just out of reach and the more I pursue it the harder it is to catch.

Lately, I've been feeling the pain of this more acutely. Is it aging? Is it being a busy mother? Is it just an extension of my general feeling of dissatisfaction? I don't know, but it hurts more now than ever. If I do get the time, will I be satisfied with the results? I can only hope to have the chance to find out.

Does this make me look fat?

I'm not sure blogging is a good fit for me. I've been trying to write about the past few very stressful days of being a mom and it isn't going so well. I keep getting off track and being long winded. I'm wondering if I can write about my actual feelings in a way that anyone, myself included, would one day want to read.

This is hard!

I am surprised at how hard it has been to get a post up. Technical difficulties aside, it has been very hard to keep a coherent thought running while exposed to my children. Wait - why am I surprised by that? In e-mail I can type a few sentences here and there and an hour later, voila a disjointed note is on its way.

I'm also finding that simply knowing I have this outlet seems to have diminished my inner need for it. Although, that may be due to the cycle of my hormones, which were probably the reason this blog was created anyway. Yes, I'm a woman, I have hormone related mood swings, get over it.

The times I need to vent the most are the times when I am the most busy being overrun by my household and family. The times when I'd like to boast are when I'm busy enjoying my family or correcting my household. Low energy and PPD tend to lean towards quiet brooding, or even not so quiet brooding, but they don't lend themselves to inspirational writing.

I'm curious as to how long I will keep the idea that I'll keep a blog or if this will get chalked up to "Silly Mommy."

What Changed My Mind

So, if only a few days ago I didn't think I'd be a blogger, what changed my mind? Having PPD and no one to share my darkness with. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm unique in having PPD or in looking for an outlet to share myself. I was looking up something unrelated and came across a blog. I read it a little and something in it inspired me to look for some more. I found 5 that I've become infatuated with. This will wear off in time, I hope, but I find I keep checking their blogs to see if they've posted yet today. I thought, "If they can do it then so can I." Now, I'm not as brave and probably not as witty, but baby steps will do. As I sit here, it does strike me as a little weird. We will forever be anonymous and you may not even exist - meaning no one but me may ever read my posts. This will take some getting used to.

Hmmm, where to start

I don't know what I am doing but I'm doing it anyway. That goes for this blog and most any thing else I attempt. I think I know but when it comes down to it - I don't. For instance I have already decided: this will be a very selfish site where I can be concerned with only me; I will tell about my negative thoughts and bad days here so I can get them off my mind and focus on putting only the good things out in person; I will not allow comments to bother me or to allow them at all if that is a choice; and I won't fret about my grammar. Of course, if you asked me 2 days ago if I'd ever blog, I'd have said, "No way," but here I am starting one and wondering if it is punctuated correctly.
Speaking of grammar, over-use and misuse of quotation marks is one of my pet peeves. My blog title is in quotation marks because it is a quotation. I use that phrase at home when I make small mistake in the hopes that my children will learn it is OK to make little mistakes and not be angry or ashamed. I suspect that starting a blog may be a mistake, but I don't know.