This is from Monday. I went back to work on Tuesday. Now I am completely exhausted .
That is one thing about working full time and coming home. You get exhausted. I know I am probably being a sissy. My mother-in-law works 10 times as hard as me every single day, so I really have no excuse. But I still get tired. As I learned from this training we did for the last 2.5 days, I am missing some skills. Probably for me I am missing a whole ton of them. Obviously I need to decide to work on a few of them at a time.
I think the main problem about doing all this full-time work then needing to come home and cook dinner and be supportive though, although they say I just need the skills, is really this: You don't get time to really think. I can't say I even approximated being a good parent while I was home this summer, but at least I had a few hours in there to think. And sometimes I did feed my children. When you work full time and come home and do all that keeping the house up stuff (which has not been happening this week, let me tell you), you have hardly any time to sit and reflect about anything, much less how you might do things better. I get physically exhausted from having to wake up early to get everything going and drop everyone off and not being able to take a nap. Obviously the executive functioning and emotional regulation pieces are tough for me, and probably where I need to build a lot of skills. At the same time, I feel like I just need a big break from everyone and everything. A big one. From the kids. From cleaning up the house. Several hours to myself with no demands or pressures.
Gawr. Whine whine whine. What a bad example I am being. People do well if they can, right? I don't think I can. I would write about our cranky neighbor more, and she deserves her own whiny post, but apparently she said she thinks I am not a good parent. I usually don't give a *(swear word of choice here)* what other people think, but when someone insults my integrity or basic capabilities it is something that I internalize. Then I read some post about NFP and how one of the reasons to have less children is if the parent's skills are low and I thought, darnit, that is me. Then I felt all sad because really I would be happy with about 7 children, but maybe I am not supposed to have that many anyway. So I realize I need to become a much better parent even to just help the two little people that I have right now. But I don't feel like I can even do anything. I feel paralyzed. It feels like too much and I just want a break and most of all, I want a nap.
