ibeachalot's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrea Yates, I sympathize. I'm really at my wit's end. I suppose part of it is the season. I hate winter. I hate cold, I hate snow and ice and I hate everything being brown, grey and dead. It makes even a good day a little depressing. I'm here to complain about my kids again, so if you're tired of hearing about it, this is your stop. Still with me? Okay... I'm going stir crazy. I guess the kids are, too. Everyday seems to get a little worse around here. I work so hard and can never see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are dishes in the sink, piles of laundry waiting to washed and more piles waiting to be folded and put away. Just when I think I'm nearing the end of the laundry, I look in the hamper and it's full again. How can five people make so much laundry? I don't get it. Even with the cool playroom I set up for the kids, there are toys scattered from end to end of this place. I thought when I gave up my 18x15 foot master bedroom and switched rooms with the kids, the place would stay a little neater. It isn't happening. I tried to instill strict rules about toys being brought out into the rest of the house, but while I try to enforce the rules with one child, the other two are unloading the room. I can't stay on top of it. I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of toys, book, videos (although that problem has gotten much better) and miscellaneous crap. I have three of the most disobedient monsters on the face of the earth. Everything I ask of them, they tell me no. Everything!! Do you know what it's like to have your child tell you no all the time? It takes me getting angry and threatening to punish them to get them to do a damn thing. Sometimes, even that doesn't work. Evan is known for getting everything he owns taken away for weeks, all so he won't have to hang up his coat or take his plate to the kitchen. He never remembers the next time that it wasn't worth it. Yesterday was the worst. Kevin had to go work on Craig's race car. Before you go and think Kevin is going back to his old ways... he made a deal with Craig. Craig poured a patio for us that would have cost us about $4,000 if we had had to pay cash for it. In exchange, Kevin agreed to work this racing season free of charge. This makes his being gone all day long on a Saturday a little easier to take. Not alot, but a little. Griffin was good all day. He stayed out from under my feet, he wasn't whiney and he was so sweet. Jameson wasn't too bad, only sassing me a couple of times and fighting with Evan on a couple of occasions. Evan, however, took the cake... He started off in such a sweet mood when he first got up. I actually thought to myself "this might be a good day" I don't know what happens to him. I can see the transformation occur gradually. He goes from being sweet and compliant, being calm, getting along with Jameson and being agreeable to being obnoxious, rude, snotty, oppositional and combative. It happened in only a couple of minutes yesterday. Before I knew it, the sweet kid who was giving me hugs and kisses was now deliberately torturing Jameson, calling me names, talking back to everything I said and bouncing off the walls. All we did was fight yesterday. Everytime I asked him to do something, he told me no and smart-mouthed me. He told me I had no right to tell him what to do. He ordered me around and told me how things were going to be. He said, "You WILL take me shopping and buy me this, that or the other thing!" "You WILL let me go outside and play with Chase!" "You don't tell ME what I can and can't do!" If I told him, "Don't get snotty with me!" He'd say, "YOU'RE the SNOTTY one!!" Over the course of the day, he called me snotty, stupid, nasty, lazy (this is my personal favorite) and "ignernt". He told me I didn't deserve to have time to myself and I didn't deserve to sit down and watch something on TV or to sit at the computer. After a long, hard day trapped in the house with his abuse, the biggest blow came when I turned on a digital music channel and found a song I hadn't heard in 20 years. ("China" by Red Rockers) I was so happy to have found it and wanted to sit and listen to it. Evan came bounding in the room and told me to turn it off. He announced that HE was watching a video and that was all there was to it. I told him I wanted to hear a song and that he would have to wait three minutes to watch his video that he had seen 100 times. He proceeded to stomp around screaming that he was going to watch his video and that he was NOT going to wait for some stupid song, blah blah blah... I gave in. He had ruined it for me anyway, so what's the point? I went to the back of the house and just stood there and cried. I'm a prisoner in my own home. I can't do anything I want to do. All I do is cook, clean, wash, dry, fold, iron, vaccum, fetch, make, give and serve. I'm scolded if I try to sit and read a magazine or write an e-mail to a friend. If I dare to try to accomplish some scrapbooking, the house is turned upside down while I'm doing it. It isn't worth the chaos that occurs while I go off by myself for a few minutes. No one in this house has any respect for me, my needs, my pain or my work. All I managed to do yesterday was clean the hall bath and I've already had to go back in with the mop and the Clorox wipes three times to clean the piss that went everywhere but the toilet. This was courtesy of Jameson who can't seem to aim and hit the toilet. I discovered this by stepping in it, naturally. Is there anything more degrading and humiliating than stepping in someone else's piss? I think not. I know this all sounds like I'm a wishy washy parent who lets her kids get away with murder. I'm sure you're all thinking what you would do to make these kids mind. Believe me, I'm strict with them. I'm consistant with discipline and I don't put up with much. But it doesn't matter. They walk all over me all day long. I'm also patient and loving. I spend one on one time with them everyday. I try so hard to be a good Mommy and I'm obviously failing miserably. I try to remember that in Evan's case, it's his condition. It gets the better of him and controls him. He's always very remorseful after he abuses me, but it doesn't make my pain go away. In Jameson's case, I try to remember that he mimics what he sees Evan do. Plus... I'm beginning to think he may have a behavioral disorder, too. He gets frustrated because of his inability to articulate his needs, so he resorts to yelling and screaming at me. Griffin is still untainted for the most part, but even he is starting to show signs of being violent. He loves to hit me when I hold him. He seems to take pleasure in it. Evan always did the same thing. It worries me. Most days I can be strong. But there are days, like yesterday, when I break. I crack and feel like I can't go on. It's especially bad when Kevin isn't here to relieve me. I have no one else to turn to. No one seems to care. You wonder why I'm on an anti-depressant? See above. You wonder why I "abandon" (as a "friend" put it to me recently) my family twice a year to have time to clear my head? Because it's cheaper than a straightjacket. If I weren't on medication, I'd start drinking. Maybe I'll quit the meds so I can start. I just want to be "me" again. I used to draw quite well. I used to write quite well. I used to have a talent for scrapbooking and wreath making. I used to paint t-shirts. I used to be a person. Now I'm a Mommy. And a bad one. 6:30 a.m. - 2003-01-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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