Image Issues

These past few days, I seem to be thinking about insecurities and body image issues alot. It’s almost constantly on my mind. Partially because I’m currently suffering from “I hate my body”-itis.

I’ve spent the better majority of my life in that predicament. With very rare swings into, “Damn girl, you fine!” moments. Like the first time I went to the bar and got my hair put up in ringlets. I was wearing these sexy pants that I had bought on layaway when I got my first job. And it was right after Kaeidyn was born, so I was satisfied with my boobs for the first time in my life. That was the first time I ever really remember having one of those “Damn girl, you fine!” moments. I wish I felt like that more often…

Lately though, I’ve just been feeling like a fat, lazy slob. Even though that’s not 100% really what it’s like, but it’s what I feel like. I tend to compare myself to other women, maybe a little too much sometimes. The whole thing is just so weird and hard for me to understand.

I have a very realistic view of what my body looks like. You know that show, How to Look Good Naked, where they line a bunch of girls up and you’re supposed to pick where you belong in the line, based on your weight or hip size or bust size? I think if I were to be put in that situation, I would pick out exactly where I belong. And even though, in my head, I know that I’m in an extremely healthy weight range for my height and that I’m still below average for most Canadian women my age, and that for having four kids my body is damn amazing, for some reason I’m constantly plagued by this stupid “I hate my body”-itis.

I keep telling myself almost every single day that I need to start working out. That if I start eating better and exercising, I’d have a chance at losing this baby belly. And everyday I fail. It gets devastating to never get a compliment, and only hear things like, “Wow Val, you’re tummy looks big” or “hmm, you sure you’re not pregnant?” For all I know, the weight gain could all be because of the depo, and all the exercise in the world isn’t going to get rid of the effects of the hormones.

I’ve even been attempting to seek out compliments from The Boyfriend, which rarely ever happens. I normally don’t want to know what he’s really thinking about my body, because I fear that it would be something horrible. After the previous foot-in-mouth comments, I tread very lightly when searching for compliments.

We’re walking through the mall today and I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I say something like, “I may not be beautiful, but at least I have brains!”, to which he just snickers at. I wish men took it upon themselves more to boost our confidence as much as we boost theirs.

I don’t know how many times in a day I say something that’s gotta make him feel good about his body. I know if someone was saying or doing the same things to me, I’d probably feel better about mine. He takes off his shirt and I will stare adoringly. He wears a sexy shirt and I go off about how great it looks. Cuts his hair, I run my fingers through it going off about how sexy he looks. All these things, and I get a chuckle when I say I’m not beautiful!!!

Why doesn’t it occur to most regular guys (especially in my age bracket) to say nicer things, especially when they are aware of a faltering confidence level? Why can’t I find that guy who doesn’t mind and isn’t annoyed by having to convince me that he thinks I’m beautiful or sexy? I know that I make it hard for him, when I’m rolling my eyes or pfft-ing him. But it would just be nice to not need to beg for a compliment. Or if it’s that hard for him to say, “Val, you look truly amazing. I love blah blah blah part of your body. I wish you’d show me your body more.”, then I wish he’d tell me why. For all I know, he just sees what I feel.

I hate that I almost rely on a guy to tell me I’m beautiful and that I just don’t feel it. I hate that I depend on his compliments to boost my confidence. And I hate even more that I have to ask for it to get it… And I hate that all the bitching in the world isn’t going to change a single thing…

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Finally Accomplished Something

So even though today started off looking like it was going to be a bad day, it ended up being a very good and very productive day. The Boyfriend drove Kaeidyn to school this morning, and ran and got some formula for Carter (since he’s finished an entire box!). Then around 10 AM, I woke up to go pick Kaeidyn up from school.

It’s been a gloomy rainy day all day. My favorite. So I grabbed an umbrella and walked my shivering ass to her school. She was so excited to walk home in the rain, and ran all the way home through every last puddle she could find. I discovered that I remembered much more about rainbows than I thought I did, as we walked past a puddle with an rainbow caused by oil in it.

I got home, and after much procrastination, decided to go do the dishes. Well after I got one load of dishes done, I suckered Kaeidyn and Kenzie into washing the cups and silverware. I love how good of a job they do, I’m always shocked that I only have to go back over a couple things.

I ended up getting almost all of the dishes done, finally sweeped and mopped the floor (which seriously needed it), and got some more laundry done. Now all that’s left to do before The Boyfriend goes back to work is vacuum the living room, clean the counters, clean the dining room and finish up even more laundry. Tonight, I have to fold clothes and put them away before we go to bed. But that shouldn’t take me long, especially being that I’ll probably sucker The Boyfriend into helping with that 😉

I need to start working out so bad. Almost everyday I find myself complaining about some part of my body. Of course, not often out loud. But I’m always thinking about it. Lately, it’s been all about my stomach and my feet. In the summer, I prided myself on my gorgeous feet. Now, I just want to keep them covered up all the time.

Prior to Carter, I had gotten to the point that the only thing that I didn’t like about my stomach was the stretch marks. Now, it’s the entire shape of it. It protrudes like I’m still pregnant, and I despise it.

I’ve been contemplating about cutting Sprite out of my diet, and switching to water. Problem is, I hate water, with a passion. But, I figure if I want things to change, I have to change them. I’m also thinking about trying to quit smoking again. I seem to be much more nervous and hesitant about it now though.

I was planning on barbecuing up dinner tonight, but then it had to rain all day. So I made these delicious pork chops in the oven, that literally simmered away in what I’m calling My Barbecue Butter Sauce, which is basically just garlic barbecue sauce, a lot of butter and every spice I have in my spice cupboard (which isn’t very many spices). It was delicious, especially on top of the Yorkshire Puddings.

I wish I liked more fruits and vegetables. Even if I was able to puree them up and then add them to sauces or whatever, but I seem to notice every little one. It sucks being such a picky eater sometimes.

Well, I guess that’s really all I have to write about today, but I guess more in the next couple of days here.

Accomplished Kids

It was a really good day today. After sleeping in until 11 AM (which is a rarity), Alfie and I went to Kaeidyn’s parent/teacher conference. I am happy to report that she is doing magnificently and has improved in every single area. She’s been in speech therapy for awhile now, working on her “sh” sounds, plurals and s-blend words. We’ve been working with her at home, they’ve been working at school and she also practices alot on her own. So she’s at an 80% accuracy for all her speech now, which is a mass improvement from 3 months ago.

They do a variety of tests, comparing from one time to another. Three months ago, she couldn’t rhyme, she could hardly recognize numbers or letters and she couldn’t spell anything but her name. Today, we find out she’s rhyming with ease, she recognizes 20 letters and every number up to eleven without difficulty (after that, she gets a little jumbled). She even knows how to recognize and spell five different words!!! Needless to say, I’m a very proud mommy!!

Then after we got back from that, we decided we were going to walk over to McDonald’s (since Mom took the car back…). It was a pretty nice day, if you take away the wind. But a hoodie, a jacket and a puffy vest was all I needed 😉 Found a tandem stroller that I had forgotten I had down in the furnace room, so it was super easy because Carter chilled in the back, and the other kids took turns in the front.

Alfie sure can stress me out when it comes to those kids though. Kaeidyn and Kenzie wanted to walk across these bricks that kind of form a wall on the side of the sidewalk. They’re completely safe to walk on, and it’s like a balance beam, but thicker. Well the kids wanted to walk on it, and Alfie starts, “You guys, be careful. You shouldn’t walk on that.” Prior to him saying anything, I didn’t think anything of it. After he said something, I suddenly got all panicky and insisted on trying to hold their hands. Of course, they wouldn’t have any of it.

McDonald’s was about as fun as it always is for us adults. Even though we didn’t stay for a super long time, the kids had fun running around and playing with other kids. Especially Kaeidyn, who adopted some little girl as her best friend, before they had actually even played together. Carter even got to play on the play place, and had fun kneeling at the stairs.

Walking home was much harder than walking there. Walking there, all the kids were excited and energized. Walking home, they were all tuckered out, full and whiny. Kenzie especially, who cried almost all the way home, until Alfie took both him and Keirnan and ran through the forest on the other side of the street from us (when I say forest, I mean just a grouping of trees. It’s not some natural wonder or something ;))

We got home and Kaeidyn was super incredibly whiny. After so long of her whiny about literally everything, we just sent her down to bed. Some more whining and wailing went on, and then she fell asleep. I think she seriously needed it. She woke up a little on the grumpy side, but once she got a drink, she was much much better.

Tonight was also an incredibly easy night for getting everyone to sleep. At about 8 PM, Kenzie started to complain that he was tired, so I told him he could fall asleep on the couch or down in bed, if he’d like. We put a movie on, and within 45 minutes, he was passed out on the couch and has been ever since. Kaeidyn and Keirnan went and laid down in my bed, and within minutes Keirnan was fast asleep. Kaeidyn gave a little bit of hassle at first, and kept coming upstairs and then saying that she didn’t know why she had come upstairs. But by 10 PM, she was fast asleep too.

We also have had a couple of pretty big accomplishments with Carter, who has eaten rice cereal a whole bunch lately (2 bowls of it the other day with Daddy!!!!), and today, for the first time ever, The Boyfriend held him and Carter drank his formula!!! No crying, no complaining, no giving up. He just took it. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get him to take it again. But it’s an accomplishment nonetheless.

I have had a few days of accomplishing pretty much nothing. I haven’t done any cleaning whatsoever (though there’s a thousand things calling my name and saying, “clean us, please clean us!” – and I just keep whispering back, “Nuuhhhhh!”), I’ve barely been on the computer working on stuff, and I’ve been curled up on the couch eating and watching TV.

I’ve been craving a workout really bad too. I told the kids today that we would go to the exercise park, and then we ended up going to McDonald’s. Almost every night when I go to bed, I make a huge to do list of all the things I need to get done the next day, and I never seem to do a single thing on the list done.

When I’m laying in bed at night, thinking of all the things I need to do, it’s like I get a burst of energy to do the things. Almost every night, I talk myself out of getting into bed by saying, “It’s really late already. Just go to sleep.”, and so I normally will. I’m starting to think that my only solution to this problem that I seem to be having, is to just get out of bed and start cleaning. It’s such a frustration.

Another huge frustration, is the fact that almost none of my clothes fit me properly the way I want them to. And the bigger frustration in all of that, is that I know what it takes for me to get where I want to be, healthily. For some reason, I just can’t come anywhere near close to executing it. So now I have this huge decision to make. Either start exercising and eating better so that I can fit into the clothes that I currently own, or succumb to the laziness and boredom hunger and just buy a bigger size… I’m hoping I’ll get motivated enough to do the former.

This is the thing that sucks the most about the whole working out thing. It’s not that I don’t like to work out. It’s that to do what I want to do to make my body look the way I want it to look (if that makes any sense), I’m gonna have to include alot of cardio. Then I’ll get to go into the stuff that I like, which is strength and flexibility training (though don’t get the idea that I’ve ever been strong, because I haven’t… Or at least, not physically ;)) The cardio is an issue, because I’ve been a smoker for seven  years. Even though I quit for about a month and a half awhile back, I’m back on the smoking train. And I don’t see quitting in my near future.

I just hope I complete at least one goal this year. From start to finish. Because I’ve started alot of goals, and haven’t even come close to completing one of them.

One more thing, before I leave you. Tomorrow, I will officially begin NaBloPoMo again. I had meant to do it every single month for the entire year, but the life of a 23-year-old, stay-at-home mom of four (who almost never leaves the house) makes it incredibly difficult. Not only because you’re a mom and the demands of that are so high, but also because there’s not much that happens in a typical day. So I’ve decided instead to try to do it three or four times this year. Hopefully maybe even more. Tomorrow will be month two!

It’s About Time

So I’ve finally accomplished some things today. First thing this morning, I started working on The Other Rantings of a Tortured Mind (be warned – there is content of a mature nature on this site and should only be viewed by those over the age of 18). Then I went and dropped my paperwork off downtown and went grocery shopping (thank you Aunty ;)).

Shopping was pretty uneventful for the most part. They didn’t have alot of the things that I went for, so it ended up being a $170 grocery shop, as opposed to the original $500 I had set out for. Ran into Alfie’s parents, first time in a year and a half that I had contact with English. They were very nice and gave me a ride home from shopping.

Alfie came over shortly after I got home. He had fixed Kenzie’s Lego Star Wars game, so Kenzie was right into that. After a very delicious lunch, and putting all the groceries away, I asked Alfie if he’d watch the kids while I took a nap. So I got about an hour and a half nap, which helped so much. I felt so exhausted before, and woke up in a pretty decent mood.

I made some dinner, and I’ve been working on blog stuff ever since. Over the next month or so, you’ll see massive changes around this Rantings and you’ll also start seeing updates on The Other Rantings. It’s being a really creative month.

We were going to these last couple days off that The Boyfriend had, but instead we’re going to do it on the next, go over to my Mom’s house. Since my guitar is broken, I’m going to use her boyfriend’s guitar and I’m going to lay down some tracks and hopefully have some of my songs up on the blog by the end of the month. I’ve been craving some play time and would love to share my stuff with everyone.

You can find some of my stuff online already, but I’d like to put all of it up and present a real quality product out of it. Most of the recordings I do have online were experimentations or goofing around, so it’s not of the best quality. And I’m a bit of a perfectionist 😉

So Kaeidyn’s been practicing her rhyming like crazy. Her teacher hopes to have all the kids rhyming by the end of the year, though she says it’s not part of normal kindergarten curriculum. I personally love it. We’ve been reading her Dr. Seuss books almost every night, and at first she didn’t understand the concept of rhyming. She thought it meant putting things that go together. You’d say “Pig” and she’d say “Farm”, you’d say “Cat” and she’d say “Food”. Now she’s starting to do “Cup” and “Pup”, or “Cat” and “Mat”. I’m pretty proud of her for picking it up so fast.

She’s also started some games based on her speech therapy. She’s working right now on saying her “s” sounds and “sh” sounds. Prior to kindergarten, I never noticed she had any problems with either of those sounds. Once it was pointed out to me, it all became very noticeable. They’ve been working really hard with her in school, and we’ve been practicing all the time at home.

At first she was getting so annoyed sitting with Alfie or I, and saying “SHirt”, “SHape”, “SNake”, “SNare”, over and over and over again. Awhile back, The Boyfriend and I had bought a “Guess What I Am” game. The game comes with a checklist that has check boxes and little pictures. So now, she sits there with her checklist and she makes us repeat after her. When she gets it right, we say it after her. When she gets it wrong, we make her say it again. She goes “Is it shirts or shirts?”, saying it wrong the first time and saying it right the second time. Sometimes she’ll say it wrong both times and that’s when the correction comes in. It’s been working, she’s practicing every day, and she’s improving.

So that’s the Rantings of today then…

Chasing the Wagon

We were doing so good
We were making such strides
We had kicked the addiction
We were changing our lives

I don’t want to whine, I really don’t. The Boyfriend and I agreed to a cheat day a couple days back, and bought a pack of smokes. We had both been complaining about wanting a smoke. As I’ve said, it seems harder to not smoke now than it did for the first three weeks. Our cheat pack lasted one day…

So then the next day, we bought another pack which only lasted a day. Today was a two pack day (that were bought, we’ve smoked one so far :() And seriously, I hate it. I want to go back to the way I felt when I wasn’t smoking. I’m still just considering it cheating.

The Boyfriend and I were sitting on the couch, and I said “I think starting Saturday, I’m not buying anymore smokes”, and he goes “Really?” as if he was disappointed. All along, I had thought that he was so upset that I had given in, and that he was loving the quitting. So I say “You want to keep smoking?!?!”,  and he goes “We’re chasing the wagon. I figure as long as we never go over a pack a day.”

It feels like crap. We were doing so very good. Those first three weeks, I was managing any possible cravings I had (put on 7″ in the process, but I blame that partially on quitting but more on breastfeeding), though it wasn’t for the smoke that I was having a craving. It was for the exhale. That’s always been my favourite part of smoking. Exhaling and watching the smoke blow out my mouth, feeling like all the problems are going with it. That, and I love the way I look exhaling 😉 It feels very french retro.

After the first three weeks, it seemed like at least once a day, everyday, I would be seriously craving a smoke. I’d start thinking about it, then I’d start talking about it. Then I started bumming a smoke or two a day off Alfie, and then came the day of the cheat pack…

It just makes me feel really hopeless about all the other goals that I had set for myself, and made me realize how many of those goals I’ve also given up on.

• Doing dishes everyday.
  The Boyfriend had 3 days off, and I didn’t do more than what was needed for meals every night. So 5 plates, 5 forks, and whatever cookery we used for the meal.
• Lifting my weight everyday
  I was doing awesome. I think I did a week and a half straight. Then The Boyfriend bought me the stability ball and resistance band (and the vacuum so I could put the stability ball on the floor without fear of it popping), and I haven’t lifted weights a day since. The Boyfriend’s been doing it on and off, even doing push ups and on the days that he doesn’t lift weights, he does 25 presses with Carter whose about 13 pounds.
• Vacuuming everyday
  I’ve vacuumed twice. Both times were delightful experiences. I just haven’t had an ounce of energy to do it. The kids were doing really good keeping their toys downstairs for about a week, and it was easy to clean the living room then. Now, they’ve started bringing everything up here, and it’s just easier to leave it than clean it!

This week has been a week of disappointments. I had so many plans for this week, and I didn’t accomplish a single one of them. Even The Boyfriend, who works graveyards, and sleeps during the day, got more done than I did.

I had planned to go grocery shopping yesterday, but then we got busy around the house and so I said I would do it today. Today rolled around, and it was cold outside, so I’ve put it off for another day. I finally buckled and called my aunt for a ride downtown to drop all my paperwork off, even though my original plan was to walk down, take a bus back. But I guess I’m too much of a diva for that or something…

I wish it was just easy to become motivated, and be less lazy. You’d think that it would  be so simple. Just get off your butt. For some reason, for alot of reasons maybe, it just seems so hard! I feel very stumped, like I’ve hit a brick wall. I hope I figure something out, I think it’s time for another re-evaluation…

So question: Kenzie’s been out of control with the asking about games. I swear all I really heard from him today was “Can I play a game yet?”, and every single time it got whinier and whinier. At one point, I was sure that only dogs could hear the pitch he was reaching…

Saying “Wait” seemed to work for a better portion of the day. “Just wait a minute, Kenzie” and it would buy us about an hour of silence. Is it horrible to continually tell your kids to wait? It feels like it’s being mean, but “No” causes a horrendous fit, giving in means he’s on the games all day long, wait buys time in between the ever annoying question.

Well time to feed the baby…

Picture Realizations

I was looking through pictures (all sorts of pictures) last night, and I came to a few realizations about a variety of things.

1. All my kids have grown SOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSOSO much…

Past	Present
Kaeidyn, 1 1/2 years old	Kaeidyn, 5 years old
Kenzie, 2 or 3 mths	Kenzie, 3 1/2 years old
Keirnan, 1 day old	Keirnan, 2 years old
Carter, 1 day old	Carter, 3 mths old

2. I looked hella rough after Carter was born…

Right After Labour

3 days later...

3. I seriously need to do something about my eyebrows…

Hardly see em...

4. I can’t wait to get my pre-baby body back…

Pre-Baby	Lil Bit Pregnant
Really Pregnant...	Post Baby Body

So, yesterday I was looking around on Amazon.com (which I’ve decided I don’t like as much as I did originally, because they don’t do PayPal – and I don’t have a credit card…), and started checking out the Wii. I’ve been wanting one since it came out, and I played a game of tennis (and kicked some serious butt!).

The Boyfriend and I are either bad or good (depends on how you look at it) at sort of pre-planning our bigger purchases. Though it’s not like this great plan, we’ve just kind of made a list of what gets purchased first and next and so on and so forth. It’s just a list, without any real plan whatsoever. For instance:

1. Buy a Vacuum
   We did this. It was the number 1 thing we needed.
2. Buy a Wii (with WiiFit Plus)
   Want it so bad, it’s our next big purchase
3. Buy a Car
   The plan is to do this with a Profit Sharing check. YAY for Wal-Mart!
4. Get a new deep freezer
   This is The Boyfriend’s desire, not mine. We have a perfectly good deep freeze, except for the fact that almost an entire months worth of food went bad, because it was unknowingly unplugged. So he just wants to get a new, tinier one.
5. A new guitar for me…
   My old one, the one The Boyfriend bought me when we were first together for my birthday, my muse, is broken and I can’t fix it. So we’ve agreed, I eventually get a new one.
6. 32″ Flat Screen TV
   Another one of The Boyfriend’s desires.  For some reason, one that I don’t quite understand, he wants a TV in our room. We’re almost never in our room for any length of time, let alone any time that it would be worth it to put a TV down there. But he’s been obsessed with the idea over the last couple of days.
7. A Cell Phone
   When we first started dating, The Boyfriend went out and bought us both cellphones. I was going to his house alot and leaving Alfie at my house with the kids alot. He never had a land line, back then Alfie hated calling his phone, so he solved the problem by buying me my own cell phone.

   Well one day, I opened up my cellphone and the screen was just blank. And it stayed that way. I didn’t get it fixed, because it turned out I didn’t really need a cellphone. No one ever called me on it… Now I don’t know where my cellphone and he has no real use for a cellphone.  But we’ve discovered that when we go shopping or whatever, it would be great if we had a cellphone.

   There’s been times where Alfie’s had to send Mama T to pick Kaeidyn up from school, because The Boyfriend and I have been rushing back from grocery shopping and couldn’t call in time to let him know to get all the kids ready to go pick her up. Luckily he’s a generally smart guy, and figured out to call my Mom (even though it was only 10 minutes before Kaeidyn got off school).

8. A new computer
   We keep saying we need to buy a new computer for The Boyfriend to run his games on, like World of Warcraft and Pirates of the Burning Sea. And I want a laptop for all the writing that I want to be doing, and all the research that I end up doing…

This stuff will probably take us a few years to acquire. As long as we have a Wii by summer (because I want to get my pre-baby body back, and I think that a Wii Fit will keep me motivated and I’ll want to do it because I love me some video games – I enjoy trying to beat everyone’s high score, it would be great competition for The Boyfriend and I. Muwhahahahahaha), and a car by next winter (profit sharing should be next month, so with any luck, it’ll be as soon as next month!), because eventually Alfie’s gonna get a job and not be able to walk Kaeidyn to school every morning, and then I’ll have to suffer through the freezing cold winters.

Kaeidyn has a full day of school today, which meant we had to send a lunch to school with her. Should be easy, right? Wrong. First, I don’t get paid until tomorrow, and I don’t touch The Boyfriend’s money without asking him first. And he’s sleeping, and I don’t even know if he has any money (I’m very determined to keep my financial independence and not force him to pick up Alfie’s slack), and I’m not gonna wake him up to ask. But anywho…

So then I find out yesterday, that I’m out of sandwich bags. Then to make matters worse, the last piece of bread got finished off late last night, and the english muffins went moldy. So all the things I needed for Kaeidyn to take for lunch, we didn’t have. For once, Alfie was useful in this department, and he had everything I didn’t, so lunch has been saved. But man was I ever stressing about it all morning. I even woke up early because of it!

Still have tons of cleaning to get done today. I’m probably gonna start that relatively soon. Hopefully I’ll actually get the revised edition of my to-do list done. And then tomorrow is going to be a crazy day. I have to walk downtown, then bus it back up to the North Side (haven’t been on a bus in almost 2 years), then I’ve got to do grocery shopping most likely solo, and then I’ve got to pile $500 worth of groceries (which doesn’t sound like alot, but somehow just around that – give or take a few dollars – feeds us for an entire month!) into a cab and then bring it all in the house as quickly as possible. Not looking forward to tomorrow… Oh well, what can you do?

Vicious Circles

Well today was a day to say the least. It felt incredibly long, mostly stressful and a tiny bit exhausting. Even though it was a “No School Day”, (which I swears happens more now than it did when I was in school) the kids were still up at 7:30 this morning. I always hate that, because I wish they would sleep in so bad on days off. Even just until 9 or something. So even though The Boyfriend said he’d wake up with the kids, Carter had woken up and I just chose to get out of bed instead of feeding him until he went back to sleep.

Around noon The Boyfriend went to bed, and Alfie came over shortly after that. The Boyfriend has issues with Alfie, just as Alfie has issues with The Boyfriend, and each of them have justifiable rights to their issues. After The Boyfriend and I’s talk about things last night, we both agreed that it would be best if Alfie had two days a week where he didn’t come over. He used to stay home at least two days a week, but that was also back when he was taking the kids on weekends. He hasn’t done that in a long time.

I’m not 100% sure why, as I often don’t understand Alfie, but he didn’t like this idea of lessening to 5 days a week, as opposed to 7. Threw a mini hissy fit, that I basically ignored. I hate it though, because he can make me feel like I’m taking the kids away from him, even when I’m just setting routine-type rules. Are there any other people who have kids with a guy that you were never married to, and aren’t with anymore, that comes over to your house every single day of the week? Alfie’s response to that, when I said that it’s not normal to have him here everyday of the week, was that it’s not normal to date and have a kid with his friend. I think in comparison, dating your exes friend is a lot more normal than visiting your ex whose with your friend daily!!!

After our mini disagreement, I decided I wanted to go for a nap. Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep a wink. I laid there wide awake for 3 1/2 hours. The Boyfriend was curled up behind me, sleeping away, and Carter was curled right into me, sleeping away. I was laying in the middle very frustrated that I couldn’t seem to sleep. It didn’t help that the three terrors were upstairs jumping off the furniture and that’s all you could hear downstairs.

I woke up and did dishes, which made all three of the kids unhappy, because I wouldn’t let them help. I was very much not in the mood to do dishes at all, but I’ve already skipped a couple days of doing dishes here and there, and I hate that I can’t complete such a simple goal. I’ve been kicking my butt hard about some of these things.

I’ve been trying so hard to get all my goals written out, and you would not believe how hard it is. I keep making these very broad statements about what I want, and I don’t think about the little steps it takes there. My big goal since quitting smoking is to “Get Healthy”. Unfortunately for me, it’s not as simple as just getting healthy. There’s a whole bunch of steps to being healthy, such as eating properly and being physically active. Of course, that just raises more questions than it answers when I haven’t, in my entire life, really been healthy. I don’t know where to begin or where to go from there.

Another goal, “Get your life under control”, that’s a really broad one. There are a thousand goals within that one goal, from creating a routine and sticking to it, to paying off debts, to being more of the mother that I want to be. It’s really difficult to narrow it down into manageable steps. Of course, there’s almost no good places to go for the manageable steps to these goals. It’s to each persons requirements and specifications. To each their own. I don’t know what it’s like to have a life that’s under control, how am I supposed to know what types of steps I need to take to do these things?

The Boyfriend and I have officially opened a can of worms that will not shut. I haven’t yet decided if I like this open can of worms or not, but since our little talk yesterday, it feels like that’s all we’ve been doing. He’s constantly seeking reassurance that I’m not going to break up with him (which is ironic, because I was sure he was going to break up with me). We discovered in all our back and forth rantings that we are stuck in a vicious circle, and it might just end up being this way for the rest of our lives. Maybe this is the vicious circle that all young parents go through, because Alfie and I went through much of the same thing. Except for about 100 times worse.

In the beginning of The Boyfriend and I’s relationship, I made some serious mistakes that will forever affect the course of our relationship. He was the amazing boyfriend and I was the crappy girlfriend. We pushed through that. Now, according to him more than me, he’s the crappy boyfriend and I’m the amazing girlfriend. We’re just getting even. I figure it’ll level out in about 6 months, we’ll spend the next 6 months or so on an even level, where neither of us is good or bad, but instead we’re both just blissful. Then about 3 or 4 months later, we’ll start being crappy girlfriends and boyfriends again.

But the kids fell asleep in my bed, and I’m officially tired, so now it is time for me to move Kaeidyn, Kenzie and Keirnan from one bed to another. and crawl into bed with my grumpy Carter where I will drift off into a peaceful sleep *fingers crossed*.