I am livid. I’m exhausted. I don’t sleep because my 23 month old is transitioning from his crib to his own car bed (since he was climbing out of his crib). I am trying to transition my 6 month old into the crib since my pelvis is not healing with her sleeping in the bed (being drained of milk all night lying on your side with extra hip compression is not conducive to repair). My kids’ father stays away 2 nights a week so he can get uninterrupted sleep and the nights he does come home, it’s usually 7:30pm. Do you know how hard it is to function without sleep? Do you know how difficult it is to function without breaks? Like zero? Eating your breakfast at 1pm because that is when you have a tiny overlap of time with the children’s naps?
So the other night I’m so excited because I cleaned all the dishes, put away all the toys, folded all the laundry, emptied all the trashes, put both kids to sleep and took a shower all by 9:20pm! Miracle! Their kids father was home that evening so I asked him if I could go see a 9:40 showing of Batman vs. Superman since the kids were in bed and everything was taken care of in the house. He drained my hopes within seconds.
“You are a mother! You can’t leave the house! What if the kids need you?” I was dumbfounded. Are you serious? I responded, “You are their father- if they wake up rock them back to sleep, but they are fed and sang to and rocked already so they should be good for the next two hours.” He said, ” for a stupid move? This is dumb.” I replied that I needed a break. A two hour break is nothing. Federal law gives everyone lunch breaks but mothers get none. I just need two hours to veg out and relax. Two hours in two years is nothing.
I’m fried. I’m to the point where I stare out the windows with glazed eyes. There is no creativity going on with my kids. I’m not able to dance and laugh and find inventive projects for us like I was in the beginning. I am burned out. Zero breaks. Like zero. No help. And when I try to share my exhaustion or my tales or needs with baby daddy? Hah! He says, “I don’t care! You want to go to work and stay home? No problem- it’s easy. I will just sit them in front of the TV and we will sleep all day every day.” If I cry, he calls me a cry baby and says how dare I complain when his mother took care of 7 kids in the projects and never complained. I have to add that his mother had welfare to pay for food and a husband in the home to help as well as older children, a sister and friends nearby. He then tells me not to compare despite him bringing up the comparison in the first place.
I look at my firstborn’s precious eyes as he yearns for my participation. I hate his father for robbing me of any energy that I need so I can be the mother I can be, I want to be, I beg to be!
So after guilting me he finally says, “fine, go to your movie- just go!” I reluctantly leave, but know I need it so I can be more present and available to my kids. Just two hours. However, as I’m driving I’m so fed up with him and his reaction and his lack of compassion or understanding and self-centeredness that I start screaming! I pull over the side of the road and scream until I lose my voice. I want to leave him. I want to kick him out of my house, but I know that I will suffer a greater loss. No baths when he is home. No grocery shopping at 9pm when he is home to supervise the kids while they sleep. No one to play with my son and take him on bike rides while I nurse my baby girl. No financial support so I can stay at home to raise my kids. Yes, I will accept this bullshit. I just have to stop expecting him to be reasonable and thoughtful and understanding. He is an asshole and the sooner I can get that through my thick skull the happier we will all be because I will not be disappointed.
I drove home and just went to sleep only to be awoken in two hours by crying babies.
Two days later and I’m exhausted. I only sought after the two hour break out of desperation- my breaking point. My eyes are glazed and I cannot focus. I just have so much resentment and anger and desperate need to have a few moments to relax. This morning was filled with my son hanging on my leg screaming as I held my baby and tried to make them breakfast. He reached for my tea and it spilled, wetting bills, photos, a deck of cards amongst other piles strewn on the table. Baby girl was exercising her new found skills at throwing by launching her pureed carrots and black beans onto the family room carpet. Attempts at changing poopy diapers resulted in butt skidding across the same bean smeared carpet. I hurriedly scrub up the evidence so my baby girl doesn’t do tummy time on feces. As I scrub, pieces of food bounce out of the carpet so I take out the vacuum and clean up the floor. Meanwhile, it becomes nap time and as I try to alternatively put my babies down (which fails most days because each one needs attention), I find a bowl of two day old food that their father left in our bedroom in a corner.
So I’m pissed. I have no one to call to complain about it to because there is no time. I cannot seek comfort or solace from baby daddy because he always responds with an, “I don’t care”. This is true mind you. Almost every time. So right now- in order to function- in order to vent- in order to focus- I sprinkled some urine on his dirty laundry. I had to get back at him. It felt good. Damn good. No one saw me. My kids don’t know. But I do. It’s not as though I’m not urinated on all day long with my baby. And it was just a tiny bit on his dirty clothes pile so it won’t even affect anything, but when he wears his stupid clothes, I will laugh inside. Finally, gaining some sort of humor.