Dammit.

It’s 9 am that I’m writing this and the day has already gone downhill. I am angry and exasperated. My blood’s reached boiling point and I am so ready to call it a day, curl up in bed and wake up the next morning.

So I thought I should start waking up consistently earlier a few days a week to get some work done. I’ve been following this blog and getting inspired to make some small changes in my life. I’ve been waking up with the kids (I sleep with them in their room) or sometimes later than them (if I stayed up to catch up on Running Man which I am currently addicted to) ever since Fatherkao started making the huge sacrifice of taking public transport and letting me sleep in instead of having me send him to work. I used to wake up at 6.30am to send him to work and every time I did that, the kids would also be up by 7 am bawling their eyes out. Don’t ask me why. It’s probably because they can’t find their mother and can’t go back to sleep without her. But if I slept till 9 am with them, they would usually all wake up fresh, happy and contented.

Waking up together with them has guaranteed me well-settled kids for the good part of the morning, except that now that I work from home, I’ve essentially gotten zero work done on most days. I try to stay up to do my planning and writing but I usually get so exhausted I just want to tune out, watch something on my iPad to wind down and go to sleep. It’s been a real challenge trying to find time to work while being constantly there for the kids and sometimes this becomes impossible.

Like today.

I got up at 7, saw that everyone in the room was sound asleep and crept stealthily out of bed to shower and get ready. There was editing to do, programme write-ups to think about and blog posts to plan for and I am all ready to lock myself in the study for an hour of productive work.

Then I got out of the shower and saw the little girl sprawled in front of me, awake but groggy and wanting all my attention. She whined and refused to get on with the routine for brushing teeth and having breakfast. Worse still, Nat also sensed the mom absence in the room and woke up upset and clingy. They both hung around the study, threw crayons and colour pencils (and whined some more while at that) and started squabbling. The new helper was completely helpless and totally incompetent in handling children (more on her soon in another post) and had no ability whatsoever to get the kids to listen to her.

Recipe for an explosive outburst from me there, I say.

At the breakfast table which I made everyone sit, they were making faces at the bread I bought from Crystal Jade last night and whining non stop for me. I tried two rounds of calm, patient talking and told the kids that they needed to eat and I would need to get some work done but MORE whining ensued, complete with legs kicking, chairs falling and hissy fits. Before I knew it, I morphed into my monster self, screamed at Nat and Becks for their poor behaviour and the maid for just sitting there not being able to handle the situation.

I only needed one hour. One hour to be productive. And it can’t even happen.

And then Ben woke up from all this commotion and things started happening on an even bigger scale. So after Mom’s outburst they were all suddenly cooperative and eating their breakfast and then decided that they wanted to play together. For a total of 5 minutes before the eldest started to complain about everyone else, namely his sister for eating into his space and his brother for throwing things and then more fighting ensued as they started to snatch toys and push one another. Now I have three kids fully awake, giving each other dagger stares and exasperating me to the point I want to scream in their faces and tell them all to go back to bed.

I only needed one hour. One hour to be productive. And it can’t even happen.

It’s extremely annoying that these kids can’t continue to sleep without the mother presence. It’s even more annoying that they can’t seem to share and play together peacefully and happily ever after. In days like these, I often question if I’ve gone all wrong with the way I parent them; if I made the wrong decision to have more than one kid (one kid = nobody to fight with = peace in the house); if I made the wrong move to do three kids back to back; if I had done the stupidest thing to co-sleep; if I had pursued the wrong cause of wanting to start something of my own; if they are like this because I stayed home.

I only needed one hour. One hour to be productive. And it can’t even happen.

And I’m the one all ready to bawl my eyes out now.

What about you? Do you have days like these? Misery loves company, so hit the comment button and share your misery with me!