Here's a plan

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Here's a plan
12
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 3:02am

I am going to go back to work so I can afford child care, a maid, a gardener and a handyman.

That way I will feel like I am appreciated for my job by making money, the kids will have someone better to take care of them who didn't spend the day yelling, and I will have some help around the house.

That's my plan and I am sticking with it.

Can you tell it has been a c-r-a-p-p-y day

me

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 6:37am

I hear ya woman!! Speaketh on!!

I felt the same way yesterday. I am so tired of arguing with dh about who gets more rest time. He is always trying to validate why he is entitled to play so much softball and his newest one is now i get the house to myself 3 days a week when both kids are in school for the morning.

Our evening routine real quick--dh comes home at 430. i feed kids while he goes and makes bed and irons for tomorrow. i bring kids up and bathe them while he relaxes. We bring kids down and then he gets at least another 10-15 minutes. i give them their meds. he strolls down at 545. i get to go shower. then he spends about 20, maybe 30 minutes with them until it's bedtime, and that time is often spent on the net!! not counting that i get up with them between 4 and 5 am 5+ days a week while he decides if he is going to sleep until 645 or get up and go to the gym.

and that's just part of it!! valerie

~Valerie
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 9:36am

Good plan,

...and you will make an amazing breakthrough and be published in 75 countries. You will have more speaking invitations than you could ever schedule in a lifetime, even if cloned, but you won't accept most of them -just some locally and a few each year to NYC so we can hang out. Your DH will be so staggeringly afraid of losing such a high-powered and overachieving wife that he will be come Husband and Dad of the year.

On a more serious note: Are you getting enough sleep? Yell if I am geting too personal, but I am thinking that your coping abilities had declined slightly since Cait's early mornings started.

I'm so sorry you had a bad day yesterday. Here's some Barry's tea and Irish chocolate cookies to start today. Maybe they will help to make it a better one.

-Paula

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 11:23am

Oh yeah, my afternoon routine...

afterschool -go through all backpacks, lunch boxes, etc. Read notebooks from teachers. Organize Cait's school binder and make sure her homework is written in from what I can understand because her program can't be bothered. Organize all homework stuff.

Homework time- Homework time with 4 kids with thier own needs reminds me why I don't homeschool. Over the next 2 hours we will have a fair share of refusals, crying over misunderstood work and maybe a good meltdown or 2 while I try to go between 4 kids, keeping them on task, listening to their reading, etc.

Then dinner - I always make it completely alone. Occasionally the kids will help but since the school year started and the stress is high, I don'thave the set chores anymore because even when they do help they are not helpful. I spend more time overseeing them and burning stuff. IF dh makes it home before dinner he is at the computer and doesn't come to the table until we are all sitting waiting for him.

After dinner - he will actually start the dishes a bit while I do all the kids checklists with them, clear the table and the night time stuff myself. You would think at thier age it would be easy but I still have to help Cait with her hair, etc. Then he usually leaves me about half the kitchen to finish and I still have to make all the kids lunches while he goes back on the computer or watches TV while he irons his work clothes.

Then the kids get some TV time before bed and I get on the puter, but then when it is bedtime who is in charge of all the tucking and everything. Yep, me.

Yesterday was the worst, I mowed the lawn, repaired 2 door thresholds that have needed repair since we moved in, put up the trim in the bathroom that wasn't finished, did the cleaning and the cooking.

After 2 HOURS of doing all the yard work (mow and trim) myself while he was on the computer after I ASKED HIM TO DO IT, I came in and STILL had to do all the cooking. Our lawn was a foot tall. I have been asking him for weeks, waiting for him to help me with it. Heck I would have done part. But there always was an excuse. It was an embarrassment to be that long. And a pain to mow.

And when I asked the kids to clean thier rooms, I got tantrums because they had been watching TV all day (while I was working my butt off) and they didn't want to do anything but TV.

Done with vent.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 11:26am

Nope your right. Not enough sleep is part of it. Getting up at 5:30 is tough enough but due to usual school and other stress I can't sleep either. So I am likely averaging way less than I should.

Other than that my husband and kids are jerks, or at least that is my feeling right now. I don't like them very much at the moment. So I am doing my best just to stay away until I start to like them again.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2004
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 12:27pm

Dear Renee,

Yuck! And I would so be putting a moratorium on husband's computer until kids are in bed, help 2 of them with homework, etc. Sit down strike until helped!!

Many ((((((HUGS))))))) and ((((ENERGY))))) to you, sending good booster upper vibes... No wonder you are ready to toss in the tower, you poor workhorse, I do understand backing off the kids chores as school starts because stress turns them into much more work for YOU than actual help. But husbands don't get same breaks, dammit.

We here just both regularly let the house fall completely apart, esp. in big transitions times, like our entire lives have been since last spring. Consequently my house right now is so piled up as to be actually dangerous to walk around in, and I know we will get NOWHERE with any of it until at least a few weeks from now. Plus I am back to work after 3 weeks of running Malcolm around the country and my clients and classes are very demanding, as all of them need a big overhaul. I am just barely hanging in there myself, maybe I can snitch a little of Paula's tea and chocolate cookies. Actually, I want a beach and cabana boy for just a few measly weeks, which does not seem like too much to ask!!!!! Hmmmm, cabana boy, yummmmmm...

OK, well anyways, I meant to write about YOU, not me, maybe it's time to scream and yell awhile, demand a night out with the girls or even alone while dh stays home and minds the ship??? You do want the ship to stay operational, which means the captain, crew and mess quarters need a day off, yes? Or an evening? Take a mental health day, read, eat out, do NOTHING?

Yup, me, too, I'd better take my own damn advice and schedule it in!

yours,

Sara
ilovemalcolm

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 1:53pm

sorry renee, hope things turn around soon. i was feeling that way too yesterday. monday they will go to school.

valerie

~Valerie
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 3:26pm

I do get out. I go once a month out for Bunco which is my savior, plus PTA board meetings, etc. I also have a respite worker usually one night a week so I can run some errands

Problem is it isn't much of a break because when I come home, homework hasn't been done. The kitchen is piled with dishes and the kids didn't finish thier checklist.

Last Thursday I had respite, john wasn't home from work so I decide I was going to go out and do things for me. I went to the library, took myself to dinner, etc. I told the respite guy Emily still had homework to do. I left him dinner for them. When I got home aa little after 8, John had been home for over an hour. He was sitting watching a video with the kids. Emily's homework wasn't finished, the kitchen was a sty and none of the kids had showered or done anything on thier checklist and it was about 15 minutes until bedtime.

I'd go away for a week or so if I didn't think the house would burn down or the kids would end up on the street while I was gone.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 5:57pm

>>I'd go away for a week or so if I didn't think the house would burn down or the kids would end up on the street while I was gone. <<

It wouldn't and they wouldn't He would cope for the same reason you do: No other option. Right now he is coasting because you will pick up the slack.

Sorry to point out a problem without suggesting a solution, but I draw the line at PDD issues ;)

-Paula

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Sun, 09-11-2005 - 6:49pm

Now for my continued witching.

We had respite today. I came home an hour early to find the kids watching a movie. Wouldn't be a problem but I specifically told the respite guy that all electronics were off limits because the kids hadn't picked up the playroom and a bunch of other stuff.

Well he said he had them pick up the playroom (yeah like half picked up maybe) and that it was hard to keep them doing things. That it was hard to get them to pick up too. NO KIDDING! But the rule was NO ELECTRONICS! I can get them to go a week without electronics if I have banished them. In the past during the school year there is no electronics during the week at all. I have been so frustrated lately that I have laxed on that rule and they have gotten entirely too much electronics. Thier playskills and getting along skills have paid for it.

Plus the kids knew the rule. They KNEW electonics were absolultely banished and the bugged him and bugged him until they got it. Plus the guy was on our computer too.

I am going back to the teen I used and ditching respite. It is so not worth it.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: rbear4
Mon, 09-12-2005 - 3:19pm

At my last ped appt, like a dope I took both boys.

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