Rollercoaster.

This week. This week has been a week. Last night, I contemplated on this week, trying to look back and see my blessings. Monday started like this:

I’m trying to decompress from this day, and I’m just not sure how to do it. Besides the two loads of dishes I ran in the dishwasher, I got absolutely nothing done. I’m completely exhausted. This kid of mine is going through something, and I pray to God it’s just a phase. I think she’s testing her free will, but I wish she would just stop. Every other thing I ask her to do is answered with, “no,” the last few days, and I’m not handling it well. This morning, me asking her to clean up her blocks turned into a huge fight, and I ended up screaming at my child. The worst part, to me, is that none of it phased her. Speaking sternly did nothing. Physically picking her up and putting her in front of the blocks was apparently hysterical. Me raising my voice was also funny. Me swatting her bottom was a game. I finally just screamed. I was so mean. She jumped and finally started crying. I immediately felt terrible and started sobbing as well. It was awful. I left the room for a minute to compose myself, and left her just standing there crying. When I came back, I was more sad than mad, and just scooped her up and hugged her. I tried to explain to her that it makes mama sad when she says, “no,” to me and doesn’t listen. We cuddled a bit, I was trying to defuse the situation. After I thought we had both calmed down, I tried again to get her to put the blocks away. She started doing everything but that again, and I did not want a repeat of what had just happened. I tried telling her that it was almost lunchtime; that didn’t really matter to her. I finally gave up and just let her roam around her room for a few minutes, stalling. It really was lunchtime now, and I was wondering how stubborn she was really going to be about it all. She finally looked at me and said, “eat?” I asked her if she was hungry and she said yes. So, she picked up all her blocks and put them away… it had to be her idea, not something I was telling her to do. Ugh.

Is it because she is a mini version of me and I know exactly what she’s thinking when she acts like this that I get so very angry? She’s pushing limits, resisting authority. I get it, I do it too, just most of the time it’s in a much more passive (sometimes passive-aggressive) way. I understand the desire to do the exact opposite of what someone tells me to do, simply because they told me to do it. I understand getting defensive when someone tries to tell me they know what’s best for me. But for goodness sakes, she’s ONE AND A HALF. Should she even feel like this yet? Or does she simply just not want to clean up her toys. Maybe I’m projecting.

Then yesterday, I was just anxious all day. Like heart racing, body trembling, feeling of dread, edge of a full-blown anxiety attack kind of anxious, and I don’t even know why. I told my hubby last night – usually when I get like that, I have an idea (even if it’s somewhat vague) of what is stressing me out; I usually kind of know what exactly has me feeling that way. Not yesterday. I was seemingly having a physiological response to nothing. I still don’t know what had me so upset.

Today was pretty good. We all slept in a few extra minutes, baby girl woke up in a very good mood and stayed that way all day, and I’ve just generally felt better. It’s really been a pretty good day.

We’ll see about Saturday. In baby girl’s babbling earlier, I clearly heard her say, “doughnut ‘morrow,” so we’ll see how thoroughly disappointed she is in the morning that there aren’t any doughnuts… I know I’m already pretty disappointed about it.

Even after this week, I’m so very thankful that the “mundane, everyday” stuff is all we have to worry about. Life could be, and has been before, much more complicated. Work hasn’t been very demanding this week, and I’m so very grateful for that. With that being said, I am still mentally exhausted. I need a vacation.