Usually, I use this site to talk about the family, or the kids, or what’s going on with all of us. But tonight, I need to share something for me. So if this all sounds kinda self-centered, it’s because…it is. But I’m also going to be very honest, sharing a lot of personal information into the internet abyss.
Before I say ANYTHING, I want to make some truths very clear. These problems are not unique to me. There are so many people who have it so much worse. We have food and shelter and jobs and each other. I am not the only person it my family or literally anywhere that is having a hard time. I realize these things. Life should never be a competition of who has it worse. I am incredibly lucky in so many ways, and I realize all of this. But that doesn’t mean things are ok.
Before all this started, I felt like I was getting things somewhat under control. This is not to say that I was happy with everything in my life. There are plenty of things I felt like I was constantly fighting for. I fought every day to take back little bits of my house from the kids’ mess and the clutter and the disorganization that surrounds us. We have that truly American problem of too much stuff. Before all this happened, whenever I had free time, I was cleaning–or, if I was truly lucky to have EXTRA time beyond cleaning time, organizing. It is not a good lifestyle. I do not recommend it. But here we are. This has been a months-long endeavor where I have made cleaning my job whenever I can. Alex has helped some, but honestly, it’s mostly been my efforts. It’s important to me because I recognize when we get to a place where everything HAS a place, we can tidy up as needed and not live in a constant state of tripping on boxes and toys and piles of things in the wrong places. Organized surroundings make such a positive impact. I’d already donated a lot and had piles to donate and send to the weird recycling company here that will recycle just about anything. After my months of working, I finally felt like I was starting to make progress and that someday, this project could be finished.
Before all this started, I also was actively working on improving my health. Sorry for my kids who’ll one day read this, but I hate my weight. Hate, hate, hate it. I try so hard not to show it or talk about it around them or at all, but I hate what I’ve done to my body. I should weigh (depending on what metric you use) 30-50 pounds less than I do. Realistically, I’d like to weigh 25-30lbs less than I do. After Lydia was born, I lost 50 lbs by focusing on what I was eating and (since I was laid off) constantly going on walks. After Naomi, I found myself at the same weight as after Lydia. But since her, I haven’t had the “bandwidth” to focus on my health, and I’ve only lost 20 pounds. I think about it all the time, every day. I feel embarrassed and like a failure every day. If someone told me they felt this way about themselves, I’d encourage them and tell them not to be so hard on themselves, because we are so much more than our weight. But honestly, it’s how I feel. I’m not trying to look sexy (sorry Alex). I just want to feel like myself, and to be healthy. I finally had fought back to start taking better care of myself the past few months before all this. I had drastically cut down on sugar (my personal addiction) and had even been trying out an in-home exercise program specifically for moms. It wasn’t going the greatest yet, but it was going regularly and I was committed. And my work had paid off, slightly, in that I’d lost about 5 pounds in maybe 2 months.
Then everything came crashing down. In spectacular fashion.
Having to homeschool Lydia has been a huge, huge, enormous challenge. She’d rather play. Naomi would rather she plays with her. Lydia had problems completing her assigned work at school because she’d rather talk. At home, it’s the same but worse. Our house is not set up for school. There is no environment that encourages focusing. Having one adult with the kids as both teacher and toddler-chaser at the same time is so unfair to Lydia’s educational needs. Keeping Naomi from hurting herself (she’s climbing everything and obsessed with learning to use our very sharp, adult scissors) or from distracting Lydia, while also trying to teach Lydia, and not being able to separate them into different spaces is next to impossible. Poor Lydia gets short, probably inadequate instructions. And then sometimes I’ll come back to her after dealing with Naomi, and she’ll have done something wrong, like draw her As so they look more like Ds. She’s already done all the repetition she was supposed to use to learn it, but she’s learned it wrong, so now I have to sit down and try to get her to unlearn and relearn with further inadequate instruction. Or her teacher will mention something in her daily hour-long online class, and Lydia will sit there, not saying that she doesn’t know how to do it but also not doing it, until the adult notices and has to teach her DURING the online class, again, while also watching Naomi. It’s immensely frustrating to everyone, except Naomi, for whom life is a game 100% of the time.
Bedtime has been exceptionally challenging lately too. You may have seen articles about kids sleeping in their parents’ beds more often. That’s been true here. But also they’re having a much harder time settling down. Some of it is probably they’re getting less exercise (no real recess or activity for Lydia, and no long walks for Naomi and Dixie, because, you know, homeschooling). Some of it is probably a change in routine. Some of it is their changing relationship with each other, wherein they like to sleep in the same bed now, but often that involves hitting and biting and screaming and still insisting on not being separated. Plus, in the last month, Naomi learned how to climb out of the crib. We never had to deal with that with Lydia, so we’re kind of at the mercy of a 2-year-old deciding to stay in bed. Which, if you don’t know any 2-year-olds, staying in bed is not really their thing.
And the work I’ve done organizing my house? Yeah, no. Some people seem to be able to do that stuff with kids around, but I have not found a way. And then by the time they’re in bed, I’m either a) exhausted, b) at work, or c) exhausted and at work. It doesn’t help that I’ve been doing a lot of stress-shopping online, so shit I order that we don’t truly need keeps arriving to our house, needing a place to go.
Speaking of stress, I’ve also been stress eating like nobody’s business. All that hard work over those months to lose those 5ish pounds? Yeah, they’re already back, and I’m terrified how many may follow. I’ve been eating all forms of sugar: soda, desserts I make, desserts other people make, treats I’m given at work, all of it. All the habits I’d fought so hard not to break, remade. All the food substitutions I’d done, gone. I just don’t have time. And sometimes, even when I try, they’re just not available. I tried ordering jicama in our last grocery pickup, thinking it was a healthy thing I should eat more of and that the girls like and that the store was unlikely to be out of, but no. They didn’t have it. I did, however, have all the ingredients and the skills to make homemade donuts, ice cream, puppy chow, and more shit I absolutely shouldn’t be eating. And I’ve been fast food a ton, partially because of my work schedule, and partially because cooking gets shoved aside at home. It’s just not feasible for me to cook AND teach Lydia AND keep both kids from dying AND work my normal schedule AND not have help. Because again, Alex is home, but he spends all day working downstairs. When this all started, I tried to include my healthy routines. Working out got abandoned first, because I just didn’t get a chance when they were both occupied. I’d also built in twice-daily dog walks as part of our schedule, but it was taking so long to get everyone ready to walk, and it was a cluster if and when we got out the door. If you’ve not walked with kids recently, it’s not like normal walking. I used to stick Naomi in the stroller, and walk the dog for 2.5 miles daily. We went on a normal route at a consistent pace. Now that Naomi is old enough to walk and Lydia is there, that can’t happen. Naomi doesn’t want to ride, she wants to walk. But she has little legs, gets tired, wanders off, tries to walk in people’s yards or the street. Lydia might want to walk for a block or two. Or run, when Naomi has stopped to look at some ants and won’t follow. But then she either complains she wants to go home, or tries to go so far that she then wants to be carried back. It’s just immensely frustrating and in no way, shape, or form adequate exercise for anyone. I don’t even drink enough water anymore. I worked hard to be good about that, having been awful at it my entire life, but I forget while I’m focusing on the kids. At work, we have masks. We can’t bring our water to where we are anymore, it has to be left in the break room where we only go for lunch. And we’re not even allowed to fill our water bottles at the water machine. Literally, it is impossible to be anywhere near adequately hydrated at home or at work.
I’m sorry if this is ranting and rambling. I’m just feeling very down. I feel unsupported, because I am. I feel defeated, because I am. I feel fat and unhealthy, because I am. I am exhausted. Even before this, I was tired a lot, because night shift and I don’t get along. Now, I get frustrated and I yell more than before, which is not how I want to be, and not what my kids need. But that’s why I feel like this. Because their needs come first. I wake up. Usually Alex gets them dressed, but I prepare them a meal. Then I school/play with them. Then I prepare them another meal. Then someone puts Naomi to nap, and I continue addressing whatever Lydia’s needs are. Then Naomi wakes and I feed them a snack and deal with whatever their next needs are. Then I feed them another meal. Then I help put them to bed (Alex does consistently help with bed). And then I sit on the fucking couch and I watch TV or shop online and usually comfort myself by eating something unhealthy. And I hate literally all parts of this. Before this, I was BEYOND ready for Naomi to be in daycare. I wanted time to focus on the parts of my life that were keeping me from being the person and the mom I know I can be. Instead, I got the opposite: the responsibility of caring for everyone, at the same time, in every possible way, while continuing to care for strangers at work, in extraordinary circumstances. And the weight of all that really feels like it’s crushing me.
I love my family. I love all of them. But I hate this. I’m last, all the time. All. The. Time. After kids, after Alex, after dog, after work, after the house, after everything. And I don’t think I can fix it. We have just under a month of school left. That’s a lot of days left to feel this shitty, but I’m desperately hoping things will be better once the school component of quarantine is completed. Because I don’t like the version of me that this quarantine is creating, and I know I have it in me to do and be better. I just can’t do or be everything for everyone, and it’s me who’s losing out.
Sheepishly,
Liz
Side note: It also doesn’t help that it still hurts to kneel (which I do a lot with the kids) from falling down with Naomi, I might’ve broken a toe while serving the girls lunch because I was carrying both their trays and couldn’t see the wooden stool N had moved so I kicked the crap out of it, and literally last night, Naomi threw a fucking geode at me and it hit my shin bone super hard, so that hurts a ton too, even though I iced it right away. With all this, even just walking around hurts. I’m truly over as much of this as it is possible to be over.