Growing Pains

Recently I think that my children were taken in the middle of the night and replaced by daemons that will just refuse to do anything that they are asked, default action is "Scream" followed by hit, bite, scratch or kick. It's been very frustrating and now I am trying to figure out how not to lose my mind and make things worse. Seems that my eldest has rubbed off on the youngest and both have found this new pattern of behavior to their liking. Stuck in a rut with no way out is more like how I feel. We have tried punishment, taking away things, spanking, yelling... none of it has worked. I am beginning to think that we won't get of it without professional help. Is this too soon in their little lives to be this messed up emotionally? I wonder if my erratic work schedule where I can work up to 18 hours a day at times has anything to do with it. This week I am on vacation so I am going to see if some interaction and less television time does the trick. Trying to deprogram them before we hit the road for a long drive to see the Music City....

Stressing out

Today was a rough day. Started with a 2am wake-up because the puppy dog, Molle was very disturbed about the Rabbit running around in his cage. Both were kind of hungry and we gave them a treat before heading back to bed. Today was supposed to be a relaxing day off from work in the middle of the week for having to carry the pager last week. Unfortunately between myself stressing out over finanicals, the kids going crazy and the pets acting up, I swear it may have been better to go into work. Of course then the pager went off twice and I had to work anyhow... Not a good week for me to voluntarily go off my stress medication. I have been a rotten person today, just full of anger, depression and in an overall need of some extra something. It used to be I could handle this stuff with ease. I might fret about a bill or two running behind but the last couple of days have me completely stressed out. I need to find that person who used to inhabit this body without the use of expensive mood altering drugs prescribed by my doctor. I know that guy is in here somewhere, I think he's just hiding until the stress goes away, or in my worst fear... The stress has killed him off completely.

New found respect

This past week I have been introduced to a new stage in life, the life of a single parent. My wife and daughter are off taking care of my mother-in-law who just had double knee replacement surgery. I have been working from my home office and taking care of my son by myself. The transition took a while and I tell you, it is not an easy thing to do. I have found new respect for those who do this on an everyday basis. Trying to make sure that everything is taken care of, balancing the needs of my son with a long schedule of conference calls and 10 hour work days. I am very lucky that my job has been flexible enough not to require me to be in the office over this last week and instead I connect to the intranet over specialized VPN software to gain my access to the things I need. Other parents are not that lucky and have to depend on their schedules being balanced just right in order to make everything run smoothly. To those of you who do this on an everyday basis, I salute you.