Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Ugh and blah

I've been feeling rather overwhelmed lately. Sad, tired, upset a lot. I'm having a hard time dealing with the kids. I know part of it is my lack of real good sleep. Pretty much since we moved, I haven't been in bed before midnight, 11 at the earliest. Even when I try to go to bed early, it backfires. Like last night. I had been saying most of last week that on Sunday, I was going to bed when the kids did. Then at church yesterday, someone invited us to their house for dinner. I know the mom from playgroup, and they have a 2 year old and a 7 month old, but I had never met the dad. We went and it was a lot of fun, but Claire was out of control. She wouldn't eat dinner, at all. She kept getting up and running around and just being crazy. Lisa said to me at one point "I've never noticed at playgroup, but she is pretty active huh?" Yeah. That's a way to put it. There is a three year old boy at playgroup that is more crazy than her, so she looks better by comparison. Anyway, Claire and Natalie ended up playing after dinner, so we stayed until almost 9. Not too bad, until you realize it's a 40 minute drive home. Ugh. We got home and got the kids down and then there is always myself to get ready for bed, and it wasn't until 10:30 before I got to get in bed. Then the kids were up all night. Every few hours someone woke me up. Claire said she was hungry but wouldn't eat. Alex kept getting stuck on his tummy. It was ridiculous. Then Claire slept until 10am and at this moment is supposed to be napping, but her room is right above my office and I can hear her running around. Oh well. I'm not getting her. It's nap time and she will stay up there until she naps. She ate lunch and has a clean diaper. What more can I do?
But I'm having a really hard time controlling my patience. I'm trying. But Claire just seems to not listen. Ever. Saturday at the grocery store, she was walking with us instead of riding in the cart. As I opened the freezer to grab something, she started pushing the cart (with Alex in his car seat in it) as fast as she could down the aisle. In the past, she would stop if I said "stop!" But this time she did not. Luckily some guy grabbed the cart and stopped her before she ran him full speed into a shelf. I just don't understand what I am doing wrong or what I can do better to make her obedient and mindful. I want to do fun things with her like go to parks or on outings, but it is nearly impossible because I never know which way she is going to run.
Part of the problem is also the house and the business. I have at least 3 hours worth of housework each day. Big houses- ugh. SO much to do to just to keep them clean. I hate it. And I'm trying to get my business ready. I want to launch by Nov so that I can hit the holiday rush and hopefully pick up some sales. There is just so much to do. Now granted, some of it I can fake. I can take pictures of one item and say it is several different items, so long as they will actually look the same when I sell them. Then I can just make things as I get orders. But some of the stuff, like the sewing stuff, I need to get done before I can list it, because I can't just take a picture of some fabric and say "this is what it will be when you order it." There just are not enough hours in the day to get everything done, hence the lateness of my bedtimes lately. I'm hoping things will go smoother once I launch my store. They should. But anyway, times a wasting. Time to get busy with other stuff.

2 comments:

Shannon said...

I'm sorry things have been rough with Claire. She is quite the little Miss Personality. I don't have any great advice about keeping her in line while you're out except maybe to try putting her in time out whenever she doesn't listen to you wherever you are. Find a corner or whatever and see if you can make her stay there and get she can't run away without consequences. That is super frustrating though. Lack of sleep doesn't ever help.

Good luck with the store. Sounds like a lot of work. Let me know when you need some advertising. I'll talk you up on my blog. My cousin has a craft blog too and I can see if she would feature some of your items or whatever on it. HUGS!

Ginny said...

I've been having a super stressful time with Bruce lately. Not listening, being aggressive with Henry, etc. It's hard to stay positive and happy when dealing with that. Last week a gal from my ward did an enrichment about Positive Discipline. It's a huge series/approach to children. She is offering a 7 week course and Kirk and I are SO there! There are some great ideas on the website, but I can't wait to get my hands on the books to read and re-read them.