Alone Time

As Billy has been working in Greensboro he has been staying at my parents house pretty much all week long. It has been quite hard getting used to becoming a single mom 5 days a week. I don't know how women do it all the time. I can tell you that I couldn't handle it all the time. Here I am at the end of week two and I feel as if I need to check myself into some type of mental health facility. I love my kids.... I love my kids more than I ever thought I could love another being, but after a week solid ( 24-7) I need a break. I have been sick for almost two weeks. After a bout of the stomach flu a week and a half ago I am still not up to par. My body still aches, my chest and head still hurt and food is still not sitting right with me. The baby has a sinus infection and a lovely cough and HATES to take his medicine. You should try to force 1 1/2 tsp of medicine into a crabby 29 lb ox. It is not an easy task. He coughs all night long and therefor neither if us get much sleep. Poor Emily has had to help out much more with Billy gone . You should try to help someone on their homework while one son in screaming bloody murder while in timeout and the other is screaming and crying because he doesn't feel good. I feel so bad for her. She is truthfully the one who is suffering the most because she is the most self sufficient. She is doing a great job with the occasional gripe, but I can take that. That brings me to Andrew. Oh Andrew. Andrew is such a handful. We will say that he has been going through a phase. I say this as I also say a silent prayer that this will come to an end very soon. He has been acting up a little more than usual and I feel whole heartedly that it is from lack of attention. As I spend all day every day with him you can't say I don't pay enough attention to him. It is that he is lacking Andrew attention. Alone Andrew time. I am trying my hardest to do the best I can. He has especially been acting up when it is just the boys and I . Especially when we are somewhere like the doctor. We took the baby in for a check up on his tubes with the ENT this week. Andrew was a nightmare and the visit ended with me carrying him out, kicking and screaming. I put him in the car seat and got in the car and sat there and cried. That night he told me that he was going to find somewhere else to live and get a new mommy. He is almost four.....shouldn't that come out of the mouth of a fourteen year old and not my little man? When we took the baby to the pediatrician he was oh so well behaved. I am sure you can hear the sarcasm in that. That appointment peaked when he bit me not once but twice in the butt. After that our pediatrician actually picked him up and forced him to sit down. He told him if he moved or if he spoke he wold be in trouble with him. He listened. As soon as the Dr. walked out he started acting up again. I was furious and once again got to the car in tears. He knew he was in trouble so he started to kick and yell because he didn't want to sit in time out when he got home. While doing this he broke the rear heat and a/c control in my car. We got home and informed my neighbor that he didn't want to live with me any more and was going to live with her. She informed him that he couldn't live with her. He wouldn't want to anyways as she was a no nonsense type lady who didn't have a place for him to stay. He would be forced to sleep and eat with her two dogs. He thought that this sounded much better than staying with his crappy mom. I told him I would help him pack his bags and went inside. My neighbor also went inside and after a minute or two the thought of sleeping outside was replaced by the thought of dinner and his jammies, he defeatedly walked back into the house. It was a fabulous ending to a fabulous day. I just wish I knew what to do with him. It seems that no punishment/reward system works with him. It can be very frustrating. I sit there at night and watch his sweet little face while he is sleeping and wonder if it is something that I have done. I have done everything the same with him that I did with Emily and I just can't figure out where I have gone wrong. Have I failed as mother? I sometimes feel that way and it really sucks. Being a mom has been my entire life for the past eight years and the thought of somehow failing at it is quite depressing.

All the kids are sleeping now and they look like little angels. I pray that tomorrow they will still be that way when they wake up. Maybe tomorrow I will have a little more time with Emily. Maybe tomorrow Alex will feel better and not cough as much. Maybe tomorrow Andrew won't want a new mommy, maybe he will want me.