Speaking only for myself

I can't speak for "all" single parents...just me. But today, I feel extremely taken for granted. It could be that I am stressed and things are piling up on top of me and more things are just "getting to me" and irritating me. And perhaps I am expecting too much from my children. It would be nice for them to "Rise up and call me blessed" now and then and even say "Thanks for making my lunch every day. You do a really great job." As opposed to the typical, "How come I don't get ....(Insert junk food items)like so and so?"

Sometimes it would be really nice to have someone, a grown up someone, around to help pick up the slack a little. This sounds really whiny. I just feel tired and worn out from doing the same thing, day after day... same battles, same arguments, same lectures and very little change.

In fact, this morning, I lost it. I went downstairs to find that 3 of my children were sleeping in the livingroom and that made me mad because I had told two of them who know they are supposed to sleep upstairs that they are not to sneak downstairs. The living room, at night, is essentially BB's bedroom. Then as I am scrambling to get Princess's lunch together, she says from the chair, "Mom, what time is it?"

Excuse me?!? Get up and look at the clock...I'm busy making your lunch. And while you are at it, grab the cheese and make your sandwich.

"But where are the bags?"

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

This is the same daughter who is getting cooking lessons from my friend April and is learning how to use knives to chop onions, how to make a tasty white sauce and how to cook rice and she can't find the lunch bags?

The kitchen is a mess. The living room is a mess. Someone ate my yogurt again, after I tied it up in a plastic bag, put it in a box, tucked it in the back of the fridge behind the potatos. And suddenly "Nobody" knows who ate it. BB, who has a tendency to speak without thinking says to me, "Well, if you would have given us breakfast, then we would not have to eat the yogurt."

What?!? Tell me you did NOT just say that to me? I pay Jenny to watch you in the morning and give you breakfast. What you have done by eating the yogurt is eaten MY breakfast and I bought enough to last until next payday and now there is not enough. If you do not eat breakfast, how is that my fault?

Then he denied he said it. The fire is stoking and starting to blaze. I'm not proud of this. But I got really mad. And then BB covers his head with a blanket.

Look at me when I am talking to you.

"I've already heard this before."

Apparently, you have not heard it enough because you still don't do what I ask you to do and keep doing what I tell you not to do. So, listen again. And when you talk to me like that, so rudely, I get so frustrated I would like to throw a pillow at you.

He looked up at me and blinked in disbelief.

I did not say I would. I only said that is what I feel like doing. There is a difference. But that is how angry and hurt I am right now by your attitude and behavior.

I then went upstairs to take a shower and I cried through the whole thing. I'm just tired. My life is hard. Some days, it just gets to me. Today was one of those days. And I feel very alone in moments like this. I try to be angry with my ex-husband and make it all his fault for putting me in this position. But the reality is that even when I was married, I was alone. I was still essentially carrying the burden of parenting by myself. I just sometimes had another adult in the room. It is not fair. It stinks. But that is the way it is. I think it is OK to acknowledge those feelings now and then...to look at them, recognize that they are there and then put them away again knowing it does not change anything. But the feelings are real. The hurt is real. Injustice is real. So, I visit that spot sometimes but I don't unroll my sleeping bag and sleep there.

That is the day I am having. I'm looking at the unfairness in my life. I admit it stinks. I wish it was different. I pray that it will be someday. And I feel sad, grieve a little and then pack my things and get out of there.