I love my kids.

Love them with all my heart.

But they make me question my sanity on nearly a daily basis.

They DEFINITELY make me question my abilities as a parent on a daily basis.  And my desire to parent an third child has completely gone out the door.  After Sam, I am through.  No more for me, please.  Thaaaaank yooooou.

To their defense, though, neither kid has been feeling totally great lately.  Jolie is battling a case of a mild ear infection and gets up screaming for her daddy almost every night (more so because of her need for a sleeping buddy than anything, though).  I tried to break her of this the other night (so that DJ could get some sleep) but it only resulted in her being awake from 1:00-6:30am, playing in her room by herself for half of that time because I was so exhausted from trying to get her back to sleep by herself (unsuccessfully). 

Sam is allergic to something.  I’m not sure what.  My hypothesis is that it was the pesto sauce I ate the other day that contained pine nuts.  I’ve not eaten pine nuts in years.  It’s the only new thing I’ve eaten lately, and I believe the pine nut proteins may have gotten to him through my breast milk.  It’s the only thing I can think of.

He’s currently broken out in hives all over his body.  I’m keeping him comfortable with Benedryl and oatmeal baths, along with Tylenol and garlic ear drops for the mild ear infection that he also has.  Combine these with teething (he’s gone a front tooth that is trying its best to cut through) and you’ve got a very cranky, needy child who wont sleep.  He wakes around 6:30-7:00am every day and doesn’t go to bed until 10pm.  He requires that I hold him pretty much all day.  And he all night (assuming he sleeps).  He’s forced DJ out of our bed and poor DJ has been sleeping on the couch now for weeks.  It’s exhausting.

DJ and I are both exhausted.

By the end of the day, I am mentally drained and ready to throw in the towel. 

On the nights that Sam doesn’t sleep, I dont sleep, and it takes great quantities of caffeine to keep me sane the next day. 

And I won’t even go into the details of trying to reason with and discipline a toddler while ensuring that she still respects me at the end of the day.  That in itself is absolutely…. ugh, I can’t even think of a word to describe it right now.  It’ll just drive you crazy sometimes.  Crazy, crazy, CRAZY!

But so far, I’m sane today.  So that’s good. :-)

And I love my kids.  I just don’t love parenthood at times.