I had the worst day yesterday.  The WORST.  I think my morning just got off to a horrible start.  All three kids were having all three of their own problems and here I am, 9 months pregnant and exhausted and trying to solve them all while keeping all the plates spinning and all the balls juggling.  My kids are wearing me down.  Aidan hates everything about his new school and complains about it constantly and will go to any lengths to find a way back into public school.  He is argumentative and disrespectful and talks back incessantly and is generally a miserable person to be around 24/7.  Tristan’s ADD is never ending and I am literally spoon feeding him every action he must take in life.  “Sit up.  Stand up.  Go pee.  Get dressed.  Eat.  Brush teeth.  Put coat on.  Pick up backpack.  Walk to bus stop.”  (These simple commands taking up an entire hour of every morning, where between each command he becomes distracted and I find him daydreaming in a random section of the house.)  The school calls me.  He is constantly messing around. His entire life is spent with someone reminding him what he should be doing, because the necessary actions of life (sleep, eat, hygiene) take him so long to accomplish that he has no room for the luxuries. It has gotten so bad, so taxing and exhausting and so beyond my control that very soon, I will succumb to medication that I swore I never would.  And Rylan, after nearly 3 years of complete bliss and sweetness and compliance, has become defiant and dangerous and angry.  I do not even know this child anymore.  He is aggressive and mean and runs from me at every opportunity.  He throws temper tantrums and lashes out and he uses the words he hears his older brothers say.  I feel like it does not matter how well I parent the babies.  The older boys have been so completely screwed up that they are passing it down, like a disease.  To top it all off, Brent is so very unhappy in his job (and rightfully so.)  It’s been over three years now in construction, with little to no time off.  No sick pay.  No vacation pay.  Constant physical work that has made him prematurely age and feel tired all of the time.  It’s not a job he enjoys.  It’s a job he endures each day so that we can have food on the table.  On a good day, he will get home in just enough time to spend maybe two hours with his children.  Often, he doesn’t see them at all.   Even his precious weekends are spent completing tasks around the house that I am not able to do.  It’s no wonder he struggles with cigarettes and alcohol.  I would too.  In fact, I feel like struggling with it now.  How easy it would be to slip right in and kick back a few cocktails each day to take the screaming edge off of everything. 

It all just came crashing down on me yesterday and I spent nearly four hours in hysterical, racking sobs.  There has to be more to life than this.  THERE HAS TO BE.  I cannot imagine living this way until the end.  This is not a life.  This is normal, yes.  This is the American lifestyle, sure.  But it is not life.  It is not what I want for myself, for my family, for my children.  I called Brent at work and he was so worried that I had suddenly become a danger to myself that he immediately came home from work.  (Something he has NEVER done before and will surely be punished for by his superiors.)  Dramatic change has to happen in our life, we both agree.  I am not emotionally able to keep this up, and certainly not with a newborn added to the mix.  Brent is not willing to be so absent from his children’s lives, especially when the only purpose has been to provide us with enough square footage, a new vehicle, electronics and a pile of debt. 

…..

On the pregnancy front, the full moon has officially begun and I am feeling its pull.  Nine more days until my due date.  We are approaching the Point of No Return.