At My Wits' End

I am truly there. Some of it may be because of me, my personality, my expectations etc., but I know that some of it is my children as well. Now along with them being a little crazy, so am I.

Crazy 1 has attitude galore. I honestly believe that she is 4 1/2 going on 14. She talks back, she purposefully does things she knows are wrong, she tries to get Crazy 2 to do things she knows he shouldn't and just generally doesn't listen to a word I say. We also have a medical issue with her that involves the potty. It is frustrating for me, not so much because of the accident itself but because she either lies about it or doesn't tell us right away. We had been doing really well for a couple of months, but then a couple of weeks ago, things started to regress. I still believe that the issue might not be just medical, but behavioural as well.

Crazy 2 is obnoxious. I mean, really obnoxious. He is loud, over the top loud and we have yet to find a volume control on him. I would think it was a hearing issue except he can hear us whisper, he can whisper, he just chooses to be loud most of the time. I have tried the inside voice conversation, I have tried time outs, I am at a loss. He also is crazy busy. He runs most of the time, he climbs anything and he gets into everything. He also is at the Terrible Two phase where he is testing his boundaries and doesn't listen or ignores most of what I say.

Lastly there is Crazy 3. He has no control over the things that drive me crazy as he is only 7 months, but there are a few things. His sleeping patterns are definitely not something I am dealing with easily. He wakes up anywhere between 2-5 times a night. My definition of night is from when we put him to bed (7:30 PM) and 6:00 AM.
Sometimes it is as easy as replacing his soother, sometimes it is a quick nurse, but other times I am up for at least 30 minutes and then it's harder for me to get back to sleep. He also does not nap well. That just adds to the craziness around this house. The other frustration I have with him is he spits his food all over me. Every time I feed him, I add food decor to whatever I am wearing. He tends to do it the first couple of bites and then at the end when he is done. The frustrating part is that he doesn't do it to The Husband.

I really do love my children. More than anything. I try to provide them with an exciting, loving and caring environment. I try to look past their idiosyncrasies and not get too flustered.

I have good children. They don't fight much amongst themselves, they use their manners most of the time, they listen fairly well when we are out and about. Most of these issues are when we are at home. I just don't really know where to go from here and I don't think I can handle much more at status quo.

For now I just needed a good vent. Somewhere to lay it all out and be able to look at it reflectively. Here's hoping that today gets better, I don't really know if I can handle it if it gets much worse.