Teetering

It’s been another one of those days. One where it’s only half over and you find yourself already glancing at the clock wondering if it’s bedtime yet. The kind where you leave the house to go somewhere and ask yourself as soon as you arrive why you ever left in the first place. Romeo is teething. I’m not sure if that’s his problem or not, but in any case he has these days where everything seems to upset him. 17 months old and he’s already mastered the art of throwing himself onto the floor, arching his back, and screaming at the top of his lungs. Then there’s Juliet who has this thing about playing games with him, but taking it so far that he begins to get upset and scream, and she seems to find this all the more amusing. Here comes the point where I begin to feel as if I am a witch as I find myself asking her yet again why she would take joy out of making a baby cry? She hollers and stomps off. I am left with screaming baby. The day goes on, one incident after another. Finally, not able to take it anymore we load into the car and head to my grandmother’s house. Here I listen to my daughter ask repeatedly if it’s late enough to begin doing fireworks. It’s clearly still daylight outdoors, but she wants to go anyways. I tell her she’s free to go on her own, but she insists that I should come out with her. I insist that I will be staying indoors until it’s dark enough to do fireworks. I leave to pick up dinner to go for all of us, and relish every bit of the 20 minutes that I am alone. Dear God, I need a break. See, I’m not just a single mom. I also work from home. During the summer the children stay home with me and it begins to take a toll on me. Even more frustrating is the amount of family that all live within 10-30 minutes of me. However no one offers to help out with the kids in any way. Well, rarely anyways. My mother, not the grandmotherly type, is generally too caught up in her own endeavors to stop and think much about being a grandmother. She’s on the go constantly, and physically can hardly keep up anymore with the ideas that are flying through her head. Besides, if my mother sensed I was having a hard time she would stay far away from me, as I’ve been told that I’m just too moody. Truthfully, I believe she’s just always wanted to see only the good in life, and doesn’t want to take the chance of allowing another’s sadness to seep into her happy bubble. My father, well, for obvious reasons I wouldn’t want to ask for his help. I’m longing for the night to come. When it does it’s still just a tease, because I know that in order to have time to myself I will have to stay up late. If I do that I will be exhausted when Romeo wakes at 7:30 am. I also do most of my work after he goes to sleep. So many nights it’s the familiar tug between knowing I need to get work done, but starving for some time to relax. What do you do? I muddle through I guess. It feels sloppy, as if we could somehow have a better routine than this, but I haven’t figured one out yet. Instead I move forward, trying to keep up the balancing act.