Jail time

I feel like I'm in prison most days. Hell, if I'm being honest I feel like I'm living in prison every day. Granted, it's a prison of largely my own design but still. I'm so starved for adult interaction I can actually taste it at the back of my throat sometimes. It tastes like resentment in case anyone was wondering. I bet there are many people in actual prison who constantly think to themselves (considering all they have is time to obsess over what went wrong) “Damn, I sure fucked that one up didn't I?” or perhaps “Where on earth did I go so wrong?!”. I myself tend to wonder “What the hell happened to my life, how did I end up here?”. You always read in parenting magazines how important it is for adults, particularly single parents, to make sure to carve out time for themselves away from their children, to have social lives outside of the home or else it can lead to resentment and high stress levels. Let me tell you, they aren't kidding about that shit!
I never leave my house. I'm so lonely and yet I'm surrounded by my 3 children 24/7. I am slowly losing my mind. I need a break so desperately. It feels like I'm screaming in a room full of people but nobody can hear me. Don't get me wrong, I love my children very much, anybody who knows me knows that much. I don't regret any of them but I am starting to resent all of them. I rarely leave my house and never for anything fun just for me. I don't venture out on the weekends when my sitter isn't here because it is so much work to get all 3 fed, bathed, dressed + myself out the door. I'm exhausted by the time I have them all loaded up in their car seats. Then there are the mechanics of trying to manage 2 infants and my preschooler. Most shopping carts at stores do not accommodate that many children making even something as mundane as going grocery shopping a virtual impossibility without someone to accompany me. Plus the twins aren't small, they each weigh upwards of 20 lbs so carrying them isn't much of an option either, definitely not both at the same time like I could in the early days.
I guess the newness and novelty of having twins has largely worn off for my family. Unless we are out in public of course, they then are oh-so-thrilled to proclaim that yes they are twins and thank you for saying how cute they are. My family members practically fall all over themselves to push the stroller on those occasions, but God help me if I ask them to change a shitty diaper or babysit for me. I know this is all my doing though. I answered the ad, I signed up for this whole thing. I found the donor and I “won” the position and agreed to the whole IVF roller coaster but what seems to be lost on everybody who loves to throw in my face that “I asked for this” is that I was seeking to have 1 more child, not two. I wanted my older son to have a sibling and I felt capable of mothering 2 children. I did not go on a quest to have twins. That's just what happens when you use ART, you take a gamble and the odds are mostly in favor of twins or higher order multiples. The thought of triplets literally makes me feel nauseous and that's what I started out with during the pregnancy, 3. I can't even fathom that right now.
I suppose I'm just having a shitty day, one of many in what's been the hardest year of my life. I know I'm very blessed and I have much to be grateful for. Things could be much worse. My children are pushing me to the brink but at least they are all healthy and happy (except for an occasional disgruntled 4 year old). I just need to get the fuck out of this house and out into the world and get a break from my kiddos. I wish for a job because then at least I'd get 40 hours a week away from all 3. How sad is that?? Right now I'm in school 2 hours a morning 4 days a week. That's all the break that I get. Class gets out and I come back to prison to try and do things around the house, homework, and watch the clock until it's time to pick up my oldest from school. Since my sitter watches the twins here in my own house I often to retreat to the smaller of prisons, also known as my room. I'd give my left arm to have an evening to myself to go have dinner with a friend (what are those again?) and go see a movie. My mom has something against the twins, this much I'm sure of. Her preference for my oldest is so strong and so obvious it's shocking. She has never spent more than an hour alone with them in the year they've been alive. If I plead with her to come watch them so I can run to the store as soon as I'm getting ready to leave the house she starts nagging about 'the clock is ticking and I better hurry and get my ass back home'. I've confronted her about this and she has sworn she's going to change but it's yet to actually happen. I think my only choice now is to cut off her access to my older son. I'll be damned if she's going to play favorites with my kids. It won't be long at all before the twins can see what is obvious to me.
Shit, I'd write more but it's time to go back to the chain gang. The twins have awoken from their naps (and are actually banging their bottles against the rails of their cribs, not unlike jail!) and it's time to go back to my drudgery. Only 3 more hours until I can put them down to sleep for the night and try to get moving on my homework....

Might as well dive right in and worry about the back story later right?

Another week is winding down. This one sure feels like it flew by. As the saying goes “the days are long but the years are short.” I can’t believe my babies are going to be 1 soon. I’m definitely having a party to celebrate but I’m not going to lie. It’s mostly going to be a celebration for me and surviving twinfancy as a single mom. And when I say single I mean, it’s all me and the kids all the time. None of my 3 have another parent so it’s all me. With a lot of help from my family. Mostly with my oldest though. I don’t think either of my parents is a big fan of the twins although my dad seems more attached than my mom for sure. I thought moving closer to where they live would mean they would visit more and it has for my dad but not my mom. She rarely comes around. I suspect that spending the first 3 weeks with me when I came home from the hospital with them turned her off to them for good. It’s funny, most everyone looks forward to the weekend but I dread them. The twins’ nanny is her M-F so weekends are hard on me. I’m running on empty and typically counting down the hours until Monday morning when she returns. I rarely leave the house but there are practical reasons for that. A) I have them on a pretty strict schedule and hate to stray from it because I’m the one who ends up suffering for it and B) the twins are so big and heavy it’s hard for me to manage them by myself (they weigh 20 lbs each) plus they are very active, especially Amelia. The weather has been crazy hot, triple digit heat all week long except for Monday. I swear, it seems like it gets hotter every summer. Which considering the state of our environment is probably true. I need to get my ass in gear and do some homework tomorrow while Tanya (the nanny) is still here so I’m not up until midnight trying to cram it all in on Sunday. The deadline for applications for the nursing program closes tomorrow to. I’m really kinda sorta hoping I don’t get selected this go-round. I’m really truly not sure I can handle it. I’d start with Dosage Calc and Pharmacology now in the fall and then the clinical program (which is very intense and has a high attrition rate) in the spring. The twins don’t even sleep through the night yet! How the hell am I going to pull off that shit?! Plus I’m basically out of financial aid so I’m sure I’ll have to beg my mom to help me just to pay tuition, no idea where I’m going to pull money out of my ass for my books. It’s my own fault though. I can’t help but be disappointed I’ve been working on my lowly ADN in Nursing for 4 years now. WTF! And I still have 4 semesters left to go. I just pray God gives me the determination, brains, and inner strength to pull this one off because Lord knows we could use the money. Not so much the twins but for my Santiago who didn’t come to me with his own inheritance. Especially since I want my hito to go a private school when he starts school next year. None of this public school APS 57% dropout rate bullshit. I want my baby to excel and develop the brains his mama passed down to him!! Emiliano got his top right tooth today; Amelia is ahead of him on everything, I’m happy to see him get something before her. Although it’s probably to better defend himself against her, she’s mean! She and Santiago are going to butt heads, big time! He’s been miserable though so I’m sure I’m in for a long night. Amelia was really cranky at bedtime tonight too, although she seems to have a bit of a cold (allergies maybe?) and I’m already on guard for another ear infection. Maybe she’s working on that same tooth he just got. Or it could be that nasty diaper rash she’s got. Looks like something she ate got the better of her backside. Oh well, better take my ass to bed, I’m sure they will be awake soon *sigh*
Maybe if I put it in writing I’ll actually be more committed to it so here goes: I WILL go the gym tomorrow and complete my W4D3 of C25K!!!!!