All posts tagged PMS

Not a Perfect Mom? Join the Club

Today’s post is linked up with Confessions from an Impulsive Addict‘s weekly meme, Talk to Us Tuesday and

Before my kids were born, I dreamed about how I would be the perfect mom. I had it all planned out. I would always comfort and hold them, talk calmly, never get upset. I would snuggle whenever they wanted and storytime at night would be fun. In my imagination, my kids would be good all the time, would always listen – actually, I think I never planned on them growing up.

Learning to be a mom has been tough, I’ll admit. There is always something new around the corner that I have to figure out how to handle. Sometimes I have an “ahh” moment and I am proud of how I handled a stiuation; at other times I wish I could go back and redo it cause I know I messed up miserably.

PMS time is the hardest time of the month for me to interact with my kids. I lose my temper easily, shout more than necessary, punish needlessly, and just make life miserable for all of us. Those damn hormones! It usually takes a few days before I figure out why I am feeling so irritable; once I do, I can more easily catch myself and control it, but until then, I am a walking timebomb.

Every little fight, mess, cry – it all gets on my nerves and I let loose. I wish I could always be calm and collected, but I guess that is wishful thinking on my part. What mother is always calm no matter what is happening around her?

Once “that time of the month” is over, I return to my normal self. But I continue to wonder if I will ever be able to make it through a day without getting upset once. Logan and Lila seem to be at war all the time. They keep fighting, biting, pinching, taking things from each other, and generally doing whatever they can to upset the other one. Do they know it gets on my nerves and is that why they do it all day long?

I think I just need a vacation – without them.

They only look innocent …

What do you do when being with your kids begins to take a toll on you? How do you de-stress?

P.S. I wrote this post almost a year ago when my youngest was still nursing, plus I had a troublesome toddler and always-on-the-go preschooler. Not much has changed, except they are all a year older. 🙂

9 Comments

by Mercy Langille on April 30, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in children, life, linkup, me, mommy stuff

Tagged crazy life, motherhood, my life, PMS, preschoolers

Posted by Mercy Langille on April 30, 2012

https://dayslifedreams.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/not-a-perfect-mom-join-the-club/

The Story of My Life

Can you relate to this?

It is evening, 6 p.m. Kids are watching a video, hubby is home for the evening. That darn PMS has you tired and grumpy, and you desperately want to relax, but dinner needs to be made. At a loss for ideas, you ask hubby for some. He offers to cook … if you do prep.

So while he watches some t.v. and then runs to the store for some last-minute items for the butter chicken he wants to make, you (finally) get the dishes done. Then you divide the chicken, put the rice on and chop onions. Hubby is back and starts to cook.

By the time dinner is ready it is almost 8 p.m. The baby is tired cause she only had one nap. You don’t want her to sleep now as you know it will only be a nap and she will be up half the night if she does. She nurses and instantly falls asleep. You put her in bed, leaving the door open so the noise will wake her soon.

You serve the kids their food, then serve yourself and plop on the couch to eat and watch a little t.v. Soon, though, you look back to see kid #1, who skipped nap that day, sleeping soundly on the table. Kid #2 has left her dinner and is playing. About this time baby wakes up. Hubby takes her out of bed and leaves the two girls to play.

You finish eating, then realize that hubby has disappeared to the shower. He comes out, gets his dinner, then again disappears into the bedroom with his food and the laptop. He tells you to take kid #1 to the toilet before you put him into bed. Gee. You were hoping he would do that. But no, it is now your job. Take kid to toilet. Sleeping kid doesn’t do anything and is falling all over. You don’t care if he wets his bed and tuck him in.

You give the baby a bath while kid #2 desides it is time to finish eating. Go to dress the baby, and snap at hubby for watching the movie you just downloaded that you had hoped to watch together. Leave the baby in the room with him so that he can “help” you. Give kid #2 a bath and get her ready for bed. She wants a story before sleep. Get a book and read to her. Finish her bedtime routine and tuck her in.

By now it is 9:30 p.m. Baby is tired and fussy, but you need a shower. Leave her with hubby and take a quick one. Sit in bed to nurse baby and ask hubby what happened so far. He turns the laptop over to you and rolls over to sleep.

You start the movie from the beginning. About 20 minutes in, baby is sleeping so you get up to put her into bed. At that moment, kid #1 walks in looking for you. Take him back to bed and tell him to sleep. Baby is up again. Sit to watch the movie and pat baby back to sleep. Put her in bed.

Just when you are ready to relax, don’t. Kid #1 keeps coming back. You keep putting him back into bed. Around 11 p.m. you still haven’t finished the movie – too many interruptions. Kid #1 isn’t going back to sleep. You shower him and get him ready for bed. He wants a story. Despite your better judgement, you give in. He wants to read a book but you convince him that telling him a story will be better so that you won’t have to go to the trouble of getting a book and going somewhere to read it.

You tell him to lie down, lie next to him and ask him what story he wants. He wants the one of the people and the naughty snake. Some quick thinking brings to mind the story of Adam and Eve, and you procede to tell it. After that he wants the one about the donkey. No, you don’t know that one. The one about the goat? No, never heard of it. It’s the last story, pick one I know. So he finally wants the one about the lost sheep. Storytime over, you tell him it is now time to sleep.

It’s late. You’ve lost track of time yet you want to finish that movie. You bring the laptop to the table and finish it there. Then you decide to read some blogs. All this time, kid #1 keeps getting out of bed. Finally he asks for a snack. Since he didn’t finish dinner, you give him one. Get him back in bed.

Somewhere around then (post-midnight), fireworks go off. Kid #1 hates the noise and keeps getting up to tell you (at least he isn’t freaking out like he used to). You tell him someone is having a party and that is why they are bursting them and he conjures up the menu – cake, ice cream and chocolate. Right, ok. Go to sleep now.

You try to continue reading, thinking that he will fall asleep at any moment. Instead, kid #2 wakes up. Give her water and get them both back in bed. Fireworks seem louder than ever. Decide to stay up a while longer so that all kids will be asleep when you go to bed.

One a.m. arrives and you can’t last any longer. Kid #1 is still awake!! Tell him you are going to bed and that he will just have to go to sleep on his own. Lie down and count to 10. The door opens but it is kid #2, not #1 like you were expecting. Fireworks are still going off, though more sporadically, so you take her into bed. You are too tired to care if you are crowded or not.

Baby wakes several times in the night. Kid #1 eventually shows up. Baby wakes you around 6:30 a.m., nurses then plays, threating to wake the others. You take her to the kids’ room so she can play and you lie down and try for some more sleep. She won’t let you. She cries cause you won’t get up with her. She is still tired but has nursed all she can, so you pat her to sleep. You don’t care how long it takes or how much she fusses. She has to go back to sleep.

Finally, the magic moment arrives. She is asleep. You have to move her to her bed since the tiny kids’ room bed is not safe for her. Give up your plan to sleep in your bed when you see there is no space. Lie down in the kids’ room. You can’t sleep cause you are too awake and hungry. Check the time. It is now 8 a.m. Get up, get some coffee, and blog about your exhausting night.

When I wrote this, my kids were 3 yrs. 10 mo., 2 yrs. 5 mo, and 10 mo. It wasn’t funny at the time but now I can laugh about the insanity of it all.

6 Comments

by Mercy Langille on September 4, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in me

Tagged crazy life, my hubby, my kids, PMS

Posted by Mercy Langille on September 4, 2011

https://dayslifedreams.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/the-story-of-my-life/

My Hormones are Crying for Chocolate

Warning: If you are a man, you may want to stop reading right here as this post gets into things that most men are afraid of. Oh, you think you’re bold enough to read on? Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

PMS – what can I say about it? It hits the best of us the hardest and we turn into someone we are not. I usually know it is starting when I get upset easily, usually at things Logan does that don’t normally bother me. I may also get upset at Glad and wonder why he is lecturing me about things I don’t really want an answer to. You know, you just want some sympathy and your man starts providing solutions to omething that isn’t even a problem. I will say something to him, not realizing that I am just after a listening ear. After I sit through his solution, it clicks “All I wanted was to have someone listen but I got the wrong person”. Don’t get me wrong, he is a great guy and has some amazing solutions when you need them, but during PMS is not the time to give them to me.

And then there are the cravings. I’m still trying to get rid of those stubborn last few kilos of pregnancy fat, and the thing I crave the most at this time is chocolate. I just HAVE to have it. I’m sure you know the feeling. I eat more chocolate at this time than any other time. If I don’t have any around, I will eat any sweet I can get my hands on. So much for the weight loss.

Top it all off with being extra tired, not getting enough sleep, waking up with both kids in my bed … I’ll leave you to imagine what happens to me.

Well, at least I know what the symptoms are so I can do my best to control myself. I know that I don’t have to let my hormones control me – and when it comes to my mood I can control it, but the chocolate always wins. Actually, I find that I calm down after having some. I think chocolate does have soothing properties; it just isn’t good for the waistline. Ahem.

On another note, I don’t know if this has anything to do with PMS or not, but I just wanted to go shopping today. I never have much to spend on myself as we budget our money carefully to make sure the important things are covered. It’s good we do, or I’d spend it all on unnecessary stuff that “looks so nice” and “the kids will use it” but then they don’t and so on.

I decided to go to a nearby shoe store that was having a sale of up to 60% off. Can’t miss that, and I did need some white sandals for our up and coming vacation. So I took Lila in the stroller and away we went. Usually when sales like this are on, it is only on the last few pairs of some model and they are never my size. I wear a size 10 or 41 by Indian standard. Most women here wear something between a 4 and a 7 so my size is hard to come by in most shops. By a miracle, the brand that had the biggest discount also had a good selection of sizes and I was able to get not one, but two pairs of white sandals in my size, upping my shoe purchase for the month to 4 pairs. Yikes! I’ve never bought 4 pairs of shoes in one month. But I guess now I won’t need any for some time to come.

And guess how much I paid for them? Rs. 295 a pair. That comes to a rough equivilant of 6 USD each. One pair was orginally Rs. 395 and the other was Rs. 695. I think I got a very good deal.

You wanna see them? Ok, ok. Be patient.

Casual yet nice.

Formals.

The other two I got this month.

For the beach.

Black formals.

No, I didn’t buy these this month, but this is so you can see that I don’t only use black and white.

Aside from these I have a pair of black casual sandals, grey tennis shoes, brown sandals for in the house, and a pair of pink and grey sports sandals for walks with the kids. They are comfy, dispite being a little too casual for my liking.

Why am I writing a post about my shoes? I must really be suffering from PMS something or other and my brain is out of order. So, ladies, (I know I lost any men who attempted to read this a long time ago) tell me, what happens to you when it’s “that time of the month”? What helps you make it without going crazy? What things do you crave?