Evil children

So, today sucked. Really sucked. I am really struggling with my kids these days and today was a killer day. We seem to have this HUGE problem. My kids gang up on my niece. She's two - only 8 months younger than Baby Boy. Whenever she comes over, my kids morph into these two mean and spiteful children. They won't share. They run around and try to lock my niece out of their room, not including her in what they're doing. It drives both me and my sister mental. It makes me almost sick to my stomach. Why are they like this? What have I done to teach them how to be so awful?

I know part of it is my own insecurities. I had a rough go in junior high and still hold the fear of not being accepted. It is my highest priority to try and teach both of my children to be kind and inclusive. They're pretty good with other kids. Baby Girl has had some issues with letting people in her room before, but that seems to have passed. EXCEPT when it comes to my niece.

So today was awful. We were having a great morning. Nice, quiet, nowhere to go. Baby Girl and Baby Boy were playing great together...for what seemed like hours. Then my niece arrived. I tried to engage them all. A new tactic, instead of letting them play without direct adult contact. I thought it would help to get our day off to a good start. We settled down at the coffee table to do our letters to Santa. And from out of nowhere, Baby Girl spiralled into a hysterical tantrum that lasted for at least 45 minutes. I couldn't figure out the problem. All she did was scream and cry and refuse to let me leave her. When I finally had her settled down, Baby Boy got set off with something...a sharing issue and then he spent 30 minutes in his room screaming at me. Every time I went in to try and console him and see if he was ready to be nice, he threw another fit and tried to hit me.

After lunch, we put my niece downstairs for her afternoon nap and suddenly the two happy children returned. I DON'T GET IT. The words I hate my children ran through my brain. Where has this behaviour come from? What am I doing wrong? I'm starting to think I should find someone else to take care of my kids when my husband and I go to Mexico in January, because I don't want to inflict this torture on my sister for 7 days....especially considering she's about to have a baby any day.

God, please give me strength and patience and some kind of wisdom.

Monday status check

OK - I'm not getting any better at writing. Here's where things are at on this bright sunny Monday.

1. My mom arrived with minimal issues. OK, she missed her first flight out of Mexico, but managed to check another flight in time for her connection out of Phoenix. You can only imagine how happy I would have been if she had NOT walked off the plane at 11.08pm last Monday night after I had driven 3 treacherous hours through rain and sleet to pick her up. She talked all 4 hours back to our house....again driving through rain and fog, almost hitting one deer...arriving at 3:30am.

2. So far we've only had one or two major meltdowns. Thursday's was the worst, which involved me breaking down in front of pretty much my entire mother's group and needing a 45 minute power walk to clear my head. Too many hot buttons in one moment of time.

3. My sister is still pregnant. Today is her due date so now we all start to get antsy about when the baby will come. My mom has been at my house for a week, so it's probably time for her to switch houses so she can help babysit my sister's toddler.

4. Weight loss is on track. I lost another 1.5 pounds this week, despite my trip to Wendy's when picking my mom up, pizza the next night and then a dinner out with friends that included baked brie and garlic in a filo pastry. Thank goodness for step class.

So the week ahead is full....kids' activities, one kids Christmas party, the CPR train comes through town one night and a big party on Saturday night. Oh, and I hope I'll get to become an aunt this week. Writing more often is definitely on my New Year's Resolution list.

M.I.A

November 13th - that's what my dashboard says is the last time I posted. How can so much time have passed? I know, I went away to the big city and coming back from a trip, any kind of trip, always throws things out of whack. The duffel bag sits on my bedroom floor for days, waiting to be unpacked and laundry done. My email (although much smaller in number as of late) needs to be caught up on. The business of life kicks back in and I'm pushed running from activity to activity, trying to keep my children entertained and my sanity level calm.

So here we are in December. I know what else has occupied my time. My new Mexico goal. I returned from the big city with a big aspiration - lose weight and start to get fit. With our trip to an adult-only inclusive resort in Mexico in January, I felt compelled to finally get off my ass and start to remove some of this baby-fat inner tube that lives around my waist. And so far, so good. I've even recruited my husband to join me in my / our efforts. I've joined Weight Watchers online and so have been obsessed for the last 14 days with counting points and going to the gym. The gym part is the fun stuff. I'm totally addicted. I feel like I want to go every day, even though my poor child rearing body screams at me halfway through a class, reminding me that I am NOT in shape and that I do NOT have any core strength. But afterwards, I feel good.

I'm also starting to feel the wave of anxiety rushing towards me over the arrival of my mother tomorrow. My sister is due to pop any day now with her second baby and so our mother is arriving to help with her toddler. Her arrival means the deep rooted anger and sadness that I feel over our flailing relationship is brought bubbling to the surface. I've spent many nights already working through the tears over where things are at and trying to determine how to handle things this time around. I know it will be the same - I'll pretend everything is ok and she will disappoint me again. Such is life.

I'm also frustrated with my kids these days. No longer are they these little cherubs who make cute baby mistakes that you can chalk up to stage of development. I'm constantly struggling with my daughter's selfishness and will to "not share". My son spends his days angry and therefore spends lots of time in his room working through that anger until he can stop hitting or pinching. They're wearing me down and I'm starting to take their behaviour personally. All the reading I do at night tells me it's not my fault, but deep down I feel like somewhere along the way I've failed.

So you can see that my time has been occupied. My mind is a constant war zone of anxiety...and Christmas is just around the corner. At least the trips to the gym are helping to relieve some of the stress and there's always Mexico to look forward to.