Discouraged.

I always have a full plate. I'm always stressed. I'm always overwhelmed. I'm TRYING to find more of a balance to my life, and in the past week, I really felt like things were turning around. I felt like a better, stronger, more confident parent. I felt like I was more attentive at work. My faith felt stronger and I just felt more driven every day.

And then I don't know what happened, but yesterday it all fell apart. I could feel the agitation and stress mounting, and Bebe was engaging in her normal Sunday whinefest (I have tried EVERYTHING to avoid this, but every. single. Sunday. she whines, complains, etc. It's our only whole day as a family and she's always complaining and whining). And, fed up with it all, for the umpteenth week in a row, I said something that I shouldn't have said. I didn't say it directly to her, but I said it nonetheless, and she heard it.

The second I heard her small voice pipe up from her room, "I heard that." I was crushed. I was crushed because I knew that SHE was crushed. And in that moment, I felt like such a complete and abysmal failure. (I am tearing up just writing this.) I feel like I am going to never be the kind of parent I want to be. I can puff my chest out and tell you I feel proud of my "whatever works" method, but what I don't tell you enough is that I fall short a lot. It's not about being GOOD ENOUGH, sometimes it's just about being GOOD. I apologized to her, I let her know that I was genuinely sorry, and our day went on... but the fact of the matter is, I should've never said what I did. I should've never THOUGHT what I did.

I'm so disappointed in myself. But Sundays have become awful, and I feel like there's no light at the end of the tunnel--they're never going to get better. We follow the same pattern every week, it seems. We get up and go to Mass. At Mass Dois fusses and Bebe is always trying to play with him (which pisses him off so he screeches), D and I spend most of Mass telling her to calm down and pay attention, or stand up straight, or sit right, or follow along, as we're handing crackers, crayons, tissues, WHATEVER to Dois to keep him occupied... We come home for lunch... and it's during this time that the whining kicks in full-force. She's bored. She wants a playdate. She doesn't want to do whatever we have planned (we always plan something for Sunday afternoon/night--a trip to a museum, the beach, etc.). She drags her feet and refuses to join us for whatever, protesting nonstop, etc. Then D gets frustrated and I get upset and we all wind up fighting... And then miraculously everything is resolved because we drag Bebe along and she always winds up enjoying what we're doing.

I just want a happy family--I want Sundays to be enjoyable and to SKIP those blow-ups. The thing is, I don't know how....

Thoughts and ponderings

I'm not sure how many readers I have, but I thought I'd post this for anyone who cares. Last night I had quite the in-depth talk with The Man. (No, not D, the bigger man LOL) I'm feeling this strong internal conflict--it's like one part of me is eager to strengthen my online presence via FB, Twitter, this blog, etc. while the other half of me is really really eager to get "back to basics" and try to narrow my field of vision to the people and things around me. It was a really good, really fruitful prayer session. I don't feel like I made any concrete decisions, but until I do, I think I'm going to just take a break... from here and from Twitter at least. It might be a few days, or a few weeks, I don't know. But I told myself that if I'm going to continue here, there, and everywhere, then I'm going to have a purpose. And I'm not sure what that purpose is just yet. To be continued....

Hey, jealousy....

Yesterday I got to experience the joy of grade-school girl drama. It was quite amusing, but also sent alarms screaming through my head, "I'm not ready for this!!"

Bebe's friend who lives behind us came over yesterday. She's a year older. We were planning a trip to the swimming pool, so we asked her to join us and her parents said yes. So Bebe got ready and D took Bebe and her friend to the pool. Dois and I were going to follow when he woke up from his nap.

A half an hour later, Dois and I arrive at the pool to see the girls playing happily together and D swimming around just keeping an eye on them. Well, I have no idea what happened at that point, but 5 minutes later Bebe said her friend wasn't speaking to her. Bebe would swim over to her and the friend would swim away. At one point the girl went to the jacuzzi and Bebe followed. In such a small space the girl just REFUSED to talk to her. What the heck? I admit, after 10 minutes of listening to Bebe be upset because her friend was ignoring her, watching her friend swim away whenever she got close, etc. I decided to pipe up and say, "Hey, do you want to go home?" I think I stunned the friend. I asked her if she wanted to go home because she didn't want to play with Bebe. She tried to make excuses and say that when she comes to the pool with friends they don't usually play together, etc. but then she said the reason why was because she felt like Bebe was more interested in playing with Dois. (Which she was, for like a minute, then she tried to go back to her friend...)

Whooo-boy. Friend is 9 years old and mom is expecting a baby very soon. My guess is that she's starting to wonder if, like happened yesterday, when the baby shows up, she'll be forgotten. By the time Dois and I were ready to leave the pool, she had come around again and was talking/playing with us a little more. I went to take Dois home, and D promised they'd be leaving "in 10 minutes." FORTY minutes later they came home. He said once Dois and I left, the girls went back to playing like before and they were having so much fun he didn't want to bring them home.

7 Quick Takes Friday (work edition)

 A few weeks ago I was approached at work and asked if I'd be willing to "help the team out" by taking on a task that I had no experience with, using a program I'd never used before. This "7 quick takes" is dedicated to what I learned in the process.

--1--

Being a perfectionist in my normal position (proofreader) is a good thing. Being a perfectionist with this new task (writing) is not. I would write two sentences, read them, delete them, write two or three more, be satisfied, come back later and delete them, lather, rinse, repeat.

--2--

I really enjoyed working with a new program. I've never used InDesign before. I have been rather bored with just reading constantly (I've been at this position for 5+ years now). I felt like working in a new format really made things interesting for me.

--3--

I gained a sense of perspective that I desperately needed. I've been too judgmental of our writers. Now that I have experienced the process, I can see how easy it is for something to get botched.

--4--

I hate asking for help. Every time I needed to ask for help or had a question about something, I felt bad because I was "bothering" someone else and interrupting their work. I think this is also why I'm bad at delegating work, because I feel like everyone has something more important to do.

--5--

As much as I enjoy being a writer, I don't want it to become a full-time job. It actually gave me a renewed appreciation of my proofreading job.

--6--

I want to take a class or two in Adobe programs. I already know Photoshop pretty well, but I think it would be cool to learn about the other programs Adobe provides. Besides InDesign, any recommendations?

--7--

I can't wait to see what I wrote in print!