Need a Little Patience, Yeah

I had a whole post written about how impatient Preschooler can be and how she is now a backseat driver in pigtails. But I can’t bring myself to post it. Not right now. Because I am out of patience.

I haven’t cried like this since January, before I was properly diagnosed with bipolar depression.

I am at my wit’s end...

...Because I can’t spend one half-hour at the gym before the staff calls for me to pick up Baby, who won’t stop screaming

...Because Preschooler whined the whole way from the gym to Trader Joe’s, and then had a meltdown because we had to park in a parking ramp.

...Because Preschooler and Baby are literally underfoot all the time, and I keep stepping on them.

...Because I’m weary of telling Preschooler she has to wait, knowing this will lead either to a tantrum or more whining and a time-out.

...Because I actually screamed at Baby to “knock it off,” instead of a sharp “no” and gentle redirection, when she kept trying to grab at everything she knows she’s not supposed to have.

...Because when Baby screamed and cried when I tried to rock her to sleep, I cried too asking her to just please stop crying. And I didn’t stop to think that all she wanted was a bottle.

I resent my children right now for not letting me have one minute to myself without demanding something from me. I am so angry right now that I can’t appreciate how good they really are most of the time.

And I feel incredibly guilty that I feel so angry and resentful towards them. And my guilt only increases when I think that maybe I’m not raising them well. Maybe they sense my negative vibes, and are just reacting to that.

Maybe this is all my fault.

I know I’m not the first to feel this way. I know I won’t be the last. And in a way I hate publishing posts like this that do nothing but allow me to blow off steam. Who really wants to read that dreck?

But thank you, internets, for allowing me an outlet for my pain. Because just journaling would just cause me to stew over and internalize my negative feelings. Blogging about my feelings at least means they are outside, not inside. Communicated, not hidden.