stop taking things out on my family

But going through a slump… need to get focused again.

having a very hard time being nice to my mom at the moment.
You see, she volunteered for an incredibly important work assignment. In India. For 2 weeks. And normally I’d be all Yay India! and Go Mom!

EXCEPT… this baby is freaking due on Feb 7th and she’s gone from Jan 22nd to Feb 9th. Worst. timing. ever. And she VOLUNTEERED, which sort of makes it even worse. She was going to take care of small son while I was in labor. We don’t know who to ask now. our best friends are having a baby 3 weeks before us. My brother lives in Colorado. My MIL has MS and can’t drive. I think we may be a bit screwed now. I’m really upset.

So every time I get a phone call from her expressing concern that I’m stressed, I need to calm down, take it easy, blah blah blah, it is taking all my strength not to SCREAM at her. ESPECIALLY when she chirps at me that “just tell the baby to come a little late!”. I want to say alot of awful, not very nice things.

How can I not be stressed???

Trying to not let this affect me so much, but I’m avoiding her phone calls because I don’t think I can be civilized. And my bad mood is spilling over into everything else. Which sucks for hubby and small son.

I’m really tired.
My birthday is today. Not that it matters- small son’s birthday is also today and he sort of trumps me.

Anyway, been running around planning for both his parties- the school one and the home one. It’s alot of work and between packing twenty small favor bags for school, cleaning my house, ordering party supplies, dealing with the contractor and the painter, etc. etc. I am really, really tired and my patience is non-existent. Hubby has not arrived home before 2 am at all in the past few days, I’ve been truly on my own. And I’m 7 months pregnant.

Get home last night, small son happily playing with cars in the family room and watching “finding Nemo”. I’m making Mac n Cheese. I bring dinner downstairs.

And see my knitting, my almost done blanket for baby #2, unraveled on the floor.

I know he’s only two. But he knows he is NOT ALLOWED to touch it. I had carefully put it in a bag and closed it up in the family room closet. Meaning he went to the closet and ignored all the other bags in favor of the one he ’s not allowed to touch. And he had to stand on a box to get to it.. I had it on the top shelf. Clever, clever boy.

Sure enough, when I hit the family room, he jumps away from the knitting and shakes his finger..”Don’t touch it!’

I freaked out. I SCREAMED at my two year old son. He cried. I cried. I just sat there crying hysterically, looking at the unraveled knitting in my lap. My crying sort of shocked him out of his crying and he came over to pat my shoulder. I picked up the knitting and took it with me to the kitchen. I just ..couldn’t even LOOK at my son. Who is cute and small and really truly did not mean to do anything bad, he’s only two.

But I spent so much time on the blanket, and I was furious.

Came down a few minutes later, kissed small son and made it clear that by touching my knitting he made mommy very, very sad.

It took an hour to figure out how to fix the slipped stiches. I am so grateful I was able to fix it.. I would have been devastated to start all over.

And now I feel TERRIBLE for yelling the way I did.

My husband has had to pull a couple of all-nighters at his firm this week. He’s exhausted. He said yesterday he’d be home early.. by 6 latest.
So when I got a call from him at 6 30 ( and thanks to Caller ID, from HIS OFFICE)telling me he wasn’t able to leave, I freaked out on him..

Which wasn’t fair. It’s not his fault. He doesn’t WANT to be there. I really shouldn’t have yelled the way I did.

As I do when I’m upset, I cleaned. By the time 2 loads of laundry had been done , I had calmed down and was feeling terrible.

I called and apologized.

poor DH didn’t get home until 11.

We are heading on vacation next week.

And this I swear… I will smile and be pleasant if it kills me. No matter the lines, or the heat, the possible whining and complaining. No snide or sarcastic or mean spirited comments will pour from my lips and I will sincerely try to relax and just have fun.

Ok I am done. :-)

When I am on the road like today, I often have time to think. Unfortunately, I am not left feeling that I have been trying my best or behaving in a way that I expect from others.

I expect a lot, I work hard and expect others to work hard… to show the same dedication, to be just as smart. This is even more true of my expectations for my family. However, I think what happens is something is lost in translation, they are not me.

My children are not little adults. Nor do they even understand why I ask them to do what they do… they just do it because I tell them. As for my wife, I really think that I fail to value what she does for us as a family. Instead I focus on what is important to me because it relates back to something concrete like “can we pay our bills?, will we be homeless?, how will we get a bigger house?, how can we ever retire?, will I be able to pay for the kids schooling?”

I am so focused on the nitty gritty of life that I fail to enjoy the best of what we have. And in that failure grow frustrated and angry and dissatisfied and take it out them. What do people say? You hurt most those that you love? Man is that true.

Need to work on this too. I should wear a sign “please excuse the dust, work in progress”.