All I Want for Christmas is my Sanity

I would give anything to be able to take a glimpse into the home of another stay at home mom with two boys to see how she does it and if she is often just as overwhelmed as me. I know I'm not alone, but to be able to physically see that other moms deal with the same issues I do on a daily basis would honestly do my sanity wonders.

99% of the time I absolutely love being a stay at home mom and wouldn't trade it for the world. However, on those other 1% days I ask myself if I'm the right person for this challenging job. Today is sadly one of those days. I hate feeling this way and am always caught off guard by the feelings as well. These feelings are often followed by me hiding out in the bathroom and quietly crying as I try to decompress, take some deep breaths and suck it up to do what I have to do...caring, nurturing, teaching and loving my boys endlessly no matter how crazy they make me at times.

This morning started out good. I got some terrific sleep filled with some sweet dreams, including one of my hottie celebrity bad boy crush Eminem. You can't not wake up with a smile on your face after dreaming about him! Hee hee hee! Anyways, the boys got up and played well together...at first. That quickly changed and lead to some massive fights followed by loud cries and a river of tears. There is nothing worse then having to deal with screaming and crying kids first thing in the morning while you're still trying to wake up and start the day off on the right foot. It was quite obvious that the wrong foot got the best of our household and my head soon began to throb. Aiden had two time outs by 8am, I had already lost my patience several times and the wrath of Liam had quickly begun to torture our house and everything in his path!

The minute I try to do something as quickly and as simple as going downstairs to make our bed and pick out my clothes for the day, I return upstairs to find Aiden had crashed Liam into the Christmas tree on his ride-on bus creating a huge needle mess, the toilet paper had been completely rolled out all over the bathroom floor, Aiden had eaten candy off the gingerbread house breaking off chunks of the icing all over the kitchen counters and Liam was playing with the disgusting toilet plunger. Wow! It was enough to make my head spin! Maybe on other days when I hadn't already lost my patience I would have been able to handle these findings with a much more positive and humorous attitude, but thanks to the way our day had already started I was by far in no mood to clean up mess after mess all while trying to keep the boys from not killing each other too.

Challenge? To say the least! It's like one of those days when I used to work outside the house and all day long I had to repeat to myself, I love my job, I love my job, I love my job....because most days, I do.

This is when my positive attitude comes into play. I take lots of deep breaths, hug my boys, remind myself how grateful I am and things could always be worse. Then at night after I put them to bed, I pour myself a glass of wine and unwind to start all over again the next day.

Thank God Don and I get to have an adult only night out tomorrow because we both need and deserve a break.

So Santa, I have been a very good girl this year and have been dealt an awfully bad life hand one too many times in return. I understand that that's life sometimes, but it'd sure be nice if you could sprinkle some of your Christmas magic over my household this season so we can put an end to the darkest year of our lives with a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Erin