At 7:00 it starts with a scream or a whine or a combination of the two. Both kids going full force from their separate rooms. They don’t wake up gradually. It’s like they wake up, sit up and are immediately unhappy and want you to know it. What’s so wrong with just getting up and entertaining yourself for a few minutes before needing to be tended to? Both kids have toys in their cribs so it’s not like there’s a lack of entertainment for them. And what’s so wrong with babbling, talking, laughing or any other kind of happy noise to grab my attention in the morning? Why does it always have to be a scream or a whine? There’s no worse start to the day than two screaming boys. This is how it’s been for the past two years. I still can’t get used to it. It’s not that I’m not a morning person, either, because I usually get up pretty early on my own. It’s that I hate being woken up 7 days a week by an alarm that screams at me, demanding immediate, constant attention for the next 12 hours.

I get up and have to go from 0 to 60 in milliseconds. I throw on my clothes from the previous day, I pee, get a drink, then head out to the kitchen to warm up bottles. Many times I have to do this with my iPod on because their screaming irritates me so much. I’ll then get Andrew first, because he’s the worst offender. I’ll give him his bottle (yes, he’s two and still drinks milk from a bottle 2-3 times a day, but that’s another story…), change his diaper, then get Robert. By the time I’m feeding Robert his bottle, Andrew is finished with his. He throws it in the sink, then goes to find something to get into or whine about. Usually it’s finding the remote from wherever it’s hidden and running off with it or whining that he doesn’t have his bottle of water yet. I can’t dare get up to grab the remote from him or get his water because Robert will be pissed that I stopped feeding him. So I just deal with it for the next 10 minutes and hope he doesn’t eat the batteries…

When Robert’s done, I proceed to change his diaper, but he’s usually mad because he’s out of milk. He eats 9oz so it’s not like he’s starving. I think it just takes him awhile to recognize that he isn’t hungry anymore. I then change his diaper as quick as I can and leave him on the floor, crying, so I can get Andrew’s breakfast ready (usually an apple or a banana). I’ll bring his plate over to the table with me while I get Robert’s breakfast ready. Andrew’s usually throwing a tantrum by this point because I haven’t given him a bite to eat yet. So I try to give him one once I have Robert all set in his high chair, but now Andrew doesn’t want to eat. Even though he wanted that “lala” or “appoo” SO BAD before, he wants a “cacka” now (he’s OBSESSED with crackers). So I just leave his food on the table while I feed Robert, knowing that he’ll get to it at some point.

You might say to just put Andrew in his chair and let him feed himself, but that usually leads to more drama than it’s worth. We did this before having Robert and it worked well, but now that Robert also sits in a chair and is now eating solids, Andrew gets jealous and when he knows that I”m busy feeding Robert, he’ll whine in his chair or throw his food or bottle of water for attention. Anything to bring the attention back to him.

After the feeding frenzy, I try to eat my own breakfast. I’ll make myself a bowl of oatmeal and as soon as I go to eat (standing in the kitchen, mind you, because me sitting at the table also causes drama), Andrew now wants his breakfast and Robert is again whining about something. They never want anything until they see I’m busy, then all of a sudden they each need something NOW. So as usual, I wolf down my food, feel a little sick afterward and go entertain them for the next few hours before naptime.

Usually those hours are spent trying to keep them out of everything. I like to turn on PBS so Andrew can watch Dinosaur Train and Sesame Street, but this usually leads to Robert climbing up to the TV stand, pounding on it, slapping and clawing at the TV and changing the channel or turning the TV off/on numerous times. And once Andrew sees him up there, he feels the need to get in on the action. Andrew knows not to go near the TV, but once he sees Robert there, he seems to forget what he knows and reverts back to his one-year-old self. So I tell them “NO!” and remove them both from the TV. At this point I don’t even bother turning it back on because the same thing is just going to happen again. So now the one thing that keeps Andrew occupied and entertained in the morning is gone. Nice.

Then there’s the bookshelf next to the TV. Robert loves to grab books out of it and even though Andrew knows not to touch one thing in it, he has to one-up Robert by taking even more books out. Between the TV and the bookshelf, it’s a constant fight all day. By this point, I usually tell them “NO!” and slap them both on the butt, but this seems to be more humorous to them than anything else. I still have yet to figure out how to discipline these boys because EVERYTHING is so damned funny to them. So I end up putting them in one of their rooms to play. These kids have SO MANY toys to play with so I don’t understand the constant need to get into everything else. Why would kids want to play with toys though?

The room trick used to work out pretty well for us. They’d end up finding something to play with and entertaining each other. Well, not so much anymore. I don’t know what happened, but they would rather now follow me around than play with each other. Because I guess it’s fun to watch me feed the cats, go to the bathroom, load/unload the dishwasher, etc.

There’s nothing I hate more than mornings at this house. Moving here, I didn’t expect to be doing it all on my own most days out of the week, but for the past year now, my husband’s had to be at work by 6:30 all but two mornings in the week. I hate it. I feel like I’m a single parent 75% of the time because of this. I wake up with the kids, I take care of them in the morning, in the afternoon and do half the work in the evening. He may give them a bottle before bed and change a diaper or two, but that’s it. I understand that it’s his schedule that is causing this and that he has no control over it, but that doesn’t make things easier on me. Being unexpectedly pregnant these past 9 months also hasn’t made things easier on me. This is why I was on birth control. I knew I couldn’t handle more than this right now. But of course things didn’t work out the way I expected them to and now in just a week or so, I’ll have a third kid in the mix. My already hectic mornings are going to become that much more hectic and to make matters worse, I won’t be getting nearly as much sleep at night because I’ll be up every few hours with a newborn. What the hell.

If you’re thinking, “I’d rather kill myself,” then yeah, you’re right. Joking, of course, but I could think of a gazillion other ways I’d rather spend my mornings. Truth is, I hate being a stay at home mom. I hate having kids tied to me every second of the day. I hate not being able to use the bathroom without kids following me. I hate not being able to eat without two mouths wanting a bite. I hate not being able to take my focus away from them for even a minute. I hate not even getting a break when my husband’s here because they’d rather follow me around and annoy me than do anything else. I hate the constant whining. I hate the crying. I hate the tantrums. I hate never being able to leave the house because someone is always unhappy in the car (usually Robert). I hate never having anybody but kids to talk to. I hate not having an identity outside of “mama”. I hate never having time to do the things I used to enjoy doing. I hate feeling so alone when I’m quite literally surrounded by people, although they’re little people.

Then there’s everything else that needs to be done around here. I feel like I can never get anything done because I have to waste my day keeping the kids out of everything. As soon as I clean anything, it’s immediately dirty. As soon as I put toys away, they’re already thrown all over the floor. As soon as I take care of someone’s need, someone else needs something else. It’s just constant going and going and after two years of it, it starts to wear at you mentally and physically. My job is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I don’t get a chance to get away from my job every weekend. I don’t get sick days. I don’t get vacation days. It’s the same thing for me, day in and day out. It’s monotonous.

I remember reading something from a SAHM a few weeks ago. I don’t remember exactly what it was or where it was said, but it was something along the lines of, “How can I really appreciate my kids if I never get a chance to miss them?” This hits home for me and I think is the biggest problem I have. My husband sees me frustrated with the kids all the time and to an outsider, it probably looks like I hate them at times. It isn’t that I hate them or even dislike them. It’s that I never get a chance to be away from them. I don’t feel like I can appreciate my kids as much as I could because I have not once experienced missing them. I don’t get to look forward to seeing them after a long day at work. I don’t get to look forward to spending a weekend with them after working all week. I don’t even get to look forward to seeing them after they’ve spent the night or weekend with their grandparents or someone else in the family.

It’s just like when my husband goes away on a trip. As much as I hate it when he has to be away for a few days or a week or more, there’s nothing better than the feeling of seeing him again when he returns. Of course I appreciate him when he’s here, but when he’s away and comes home, I can appreciate having him around that much more. I’m given a chance to miss him, think about him, get excited about seeing him again. I never get that with my kids since I’m around them all the time. Yeah, I may get two hours to myself to go to the doctor or grocery shopping, but that really isn’t enough.

As much as I’m excited about a new baby, I can’t help but feel even more depressed about this whole situation. As if I wasn’t already stuck in a rut, now I’m stuck even further. It’s sad that I’m actually looking forward to labor so I can get a mini vacation in the hospital away from this chaos. I mean, who looks at a hospital stay as a getaway? Probably not many people. But you better believe I’ll be taking advantage of having a team of nurses wait on me hand and foot! It’s just going to suck when I have to return to reality with three kids instead of two and I won’t have that constant help to get me through the day.

I really don’t even know what I’m trying to accomplish by writing this. I guess to mainly just get it all off my chest. I never have anyone to talk to about my SAHM frustrations. I don’t know anyone in my situation and those I can talk to don’t seem to show any sympathy. Sometimes I’ll talk to my mom about what I’m going through, but she’ll start saying, “Oh, but they’re so adorable!” or “They’re such a blessing!” or something similar and I’m left feeling like I just want to hang up the phone. Yeah, they’re adorable, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to take care of. A simple, “I understand” or “I sympathize” would work wonders, even if you don’t fully understand what I’m going through. I hate feeling like my feelings are always minimized just because I have kids. Like my feelings don’t matter anymore. Like I don’t matter anymore. Like my life is supposed to completely revolve around them now and I must put every need of my own on hold.

It’s especially frustrating because, even though she wasn’t a SAHM, she was a single parent for most of our upbringing. Even when she was married to my dad, he was never around to help. If anyone would understand what I’m going through, I would think it would be her, but unfortunately, she has multiple sclerosis and I think she just doesn’t have the capacity to remember how things were for her when she was raising me and my sister. This is also something I struggle with. Most women can look up to their mothers for advice on raising kids when they become mothers, but I feel like I’ve been cheated out of that because of my mom’s condition. I know it isn’t her fault, but I feel like it’s a part of motherhood that I’m never going to experience and I can’t help but be frustrated by it. I don’t have anyone to look up to who has “been there, done that”. It’s just me, going at it alone. Learning as I go with zero support outside of my husband who can’t even be here as much as I need him.

Sigh.