I am having a week which is pushing me to my limits.  I am finding limits like a blind man finding walls without a cane in a building set to be demolished at any moment.  I am running smack into them, shaking off the “ouch” and hurrying onward…but I am tired.  The pain accompanying the stress isn’t helping much either.  I feel like back during my initial flare when I had horrible headaches which woke me up, and the only cure for the headaches was sleep.  I sometimes want to tell my nerves, “You do know you aren’t helping, right?”

With the one kid in the hospital for a 3rd week having set backs, I’ve been forced to provide more for our kids than normal.  They of course feel the pressure of having a little girl in our care in the hospital.  To their credit it means far more than mom is in the hospital with her instead of at home.  They ask every night if she is coming home tomorrow.  They worry for her which shows in more extreme loss of personal controls.  There has a been a teary moment every night for a week, but it’s been needed as the only way to stop the hyper activity.  My voice is very soft by the time the last goes to bed.  I just have nothing left…and then I get up and go to work for the few hours I can.  I am treading water here.

I have let more things slip by me this week than I care to think about.  I sit here writing this stream of consciousness in part to vent because I know I have to let some out and relax before O has surgery next week to remove his tonsils.  I know I have to be stronger because next week will be harder…which means even more pressure to live and do NOW.  Heck, even checking on rates to Disney World at the end of the month for us and the kids is hard (and for this all I am doing is trying to beat an already acceptable deal).   The knowledge most people would kill to have this particular stress doesn’t help one bit. 

There are days I just want the world to shut up  for a minute and let me catch my breath.  Though maybe this is like treading water in the ocean hoping for the waves to stop.  I know the key is to just float and kick…I’m just having trouble finding the relax button on my personal remote to allow me to stop trying so hard to tread water and swim.  Just float…And then

 

 last night happens, a wave to leave this attempted floater sputtering.   After a car ride home from dinner consisting of 2 kids screaming, crying, and hitting all the way home, the kids continue the melt down at home.  As mentioned above, these fits of misguided hyper activity have been happening this week.  Still, as one kid carries soiled clothes to the wash while the other is in time out followed by a switch where the other child scrubs the area with Clorox wipes, I thought I had done well to get kids changed, medicated and in bed on time.  I was completely unprepared to be broadsided by the “if you were calmer and more positive when you felt bad, the kids would behave better for you” assault.  Never mind the same thing happening at the same time when I wasn’t taking care of them.  The follow up was killer, “If taking care of another kid is what is causing this, then we should stop fostering kids.”  Why did I ever bother mentioning I felt bad during the day?