In my case sometimes it is because I got home from work at 1:00am and then woke up to a child crying from growing pains at 3am and then woke up at 5am because the other kid had wet his bed and I had to change the sheets. At 5:45 am the other child wakes up with a nightmare and needs warm milk or snuggling for 15 mins. to fall back asleep. At 7:00 the kids are up for the day and I'm feeling haggard and testy. (I feel even more snappy if I try to go to bed at 10:30 pm that night and my husband says, "Are you really going to bed this early?!" or I have to work till after midnight again that evening).
Sometimes it is because you've told the kids to be nice to the cat more times than you can count and yet I hear the cat cry or hiss when a child pulls his tail or lays down on him.
Sometimes it is because I have a conversation with my husband that goes like this:
Me: Honey, will you please load this plate in the dishwasher instead of placing it over the disposal so I can't run my food down the sink?!
Him: Why don't you just do it? It would only take you a few seconds.
Me: Why don't you just clean up all the stupid messes I make?! It would also only take you a couple seconds to do!
Him: I'm really sick of you complaining about this same thing for the last 13 years! Why don't you just quit complaining all the time?!
Me: Believe me, no one is more sick of this conversation than me.
Sometimes I get grumpy because Jonah lays on the floor and cries and tells me, "I can't walk!!" when he doesn't feel like doing something. Or because some days he says "no" to absolutely everything I say to him.
Sometimes it's because I have a sinus infection and I try to take a nap, only to be awoken by Jonah every 10 minutes until I finally get 15 solid minutes when I am awoken by Elora who has taken her hour and a half nap when all I've managed are three five minute naps and one 15 minute nap and I'm still tired and sick.
Sometimes I feel like I've accomplished next to nothing in a day but the fact is that dressing myself and two other small people and feeding us three meals a day, keeping the kitchen relatively tidy, sweeping the floor, and doing one load of laundry is a lot more taxing than it sounds like. The amount of crying and whining and "I don't love you"s I listen to in the course of one day is sometimes takes quit a toll on me.
Fortunately I have two healthy, beautiful, mostly sweet children. The joys far outweigh the frustrations, but there are days...
Good stories from today:
Me: I love this song (the Temptations My Girl).
Jonah: Me too, it's a happy song.
We went to the Rec Center today to play and ride bikes for 45 minutes. We all really enjoyed it. Elora can almost dribble and can certainly kick. I know everyone thinks their kids are advanced, but seriously, that girl can talk as well as some 8 year olds AND has great fine motor skills (can draw cute little people) and large motor skills (bike riding, kicking a ball).
Jonah was having SO much fun with the cd player today. He put in Black-Eyed Peas, Christmas songs, and then White Zombie (which he called an "angry song" but he seemed to really enjoy for a few minutes).
After nearly anything I say to Elora today, she begins her response with "But..."
