Hot? Or not.

Unless you mean peri-menopausal hot flashes. Or the summer heat here in Georgia. Those, I've got. My mojo? Gone.

Long ago I wrote about being young & beautiful. Lately I've been feeling that those days are far, far behind me. It adds to my generalized sadness. I don't think I've morphed into some heinous beast, I'm just not as confident in my appearance as I used to be, and confidence is somewhere around 90% of good looks, IMO.

No idea how to get back to having "it." Could be that that stage of my life is over.

I hate summer.

News flash: Summer Sucks! Oh I know, it's supposed to be full of fun family activities, relaxation, and the stuff memories are made of, but I'm hoping I'll be able to forget this summer. I have all three kids 24/7. Aside from half hour swim lessons four times a week for Little Boy and Little Girl, I have no other scheduled activities. My freelance business has totally dried up, so we're existing on B.'s salary alone, which doesn't leave enough $$$ to spare for summer camps, or much in the way of babysitters.

Can I just whine for a second? It's so hard dragging around three kids everywhere. Small errands become exhausting marathons. Every stop is slow and inefficient and takes forever. I have to pick and choose what gets done, since the kids (or I) will implode if I push too far.

The heat is killing me, and it's barely June. Taking three small kids with minimal to no swimming skills to the pool sucks. I have to be hyper-vigilant and in three places at once and like everything else, it's exhausting. On the rare occasions that he accompanies us to the pool, B. has the audacity to bring (and read!) a book. Seriously?

And then there's B. I don't know what's going on with him, but he's not in a good place. He's actually lost his shit with me a couple of times and raged, absolutely raged at me. Our relationship has broken down to the point where we're unable to communicate about anything of importance. I have no idea how to fix it.

To top it all off, I don't think my meds are working as well as they used to. I seem to be feeling things much more acutely, and I'd rather not. I'm going to give it a little time to make sure it's not just the beginning-of-summer blues, but if things don't change, I'll have to make some sort of adjustment.

Hope your summer is off to a better start than mine! Sorry for the self-indulgent whining.

Annoyed.

It's a constant state for me. Which is in itself, annoying. It's perhaps one of my greater failings, that I'm more annoyed by my children than anything else. The meds have quelled the depression for the most part, but they haven't made me much more patient. Or able to tolerate the repetitive behavior that drives me Nuts. It contributes to my overall feeling of failure as a parent. I'm snarky & sarcastic & bitter with Little Boy and Little Girl, and aware enough of it to feel pretty guilty. I keep waiting for the next phase of their development, one presumably less annoying, but it never seems to come. And now Baby has entered the same challenging territory, and while as a singleton she's much easier to manage, my patience is already worn thin and she inevitably will also be the recipient of my aforementioned snark, sarcasm and bitterness. Sad, right?

Not much else to report from this end. Holding steady. My dad is still alive. My marriage sucks. The meds may have saved my life, but I'm still not enjoying it.

Cliff notes.

Actual paragraphs are far beyond my abilities right now, so a list it is!

1. My dad is still not doing well and will most likely not recover. My mother & siblings are hot messes.

2. Can't stand my husband lately. Many reasons, none of them new.

3. Baby is no longer a baby, is officially into Everything, driving me nuts, and slowly weaning.

4. I keep waiting for Little Boy and Little Girl to reach an age where they're less "challenging" (read: annoying). Evidently four and a half is not that age.

5. I still have horrible eczema on my face. Allergy testing revealed I'm allergic to...(wait for it) nothing. I look awful.

6. I have wonderful friends. That I never see.

7. For whatever reason, I am really enjoying winter. I'm never cold, we've had snow, and it's been wonderful.Very odd for me, but I'm not complaining.

8. My meds are still keeping me pretty numb. I love it. I'd be happy to never have another intense feeling for the rest of my life. I've already had my fill.

9. We got a piano! Needs tuning, but looks great. I've been trying to pick out melodies with some simple sheet music, will someday take a lesson or two.

10. Our holidays were pretty good. Surprising, considering they included a buttload of travel. All went well. Everything would have been lovely were it not for the health of both my father and father-in-law.

And that's all I'm gonna say about that right now.

Disaster.

For once, it's not about me. It's swirling around me, but it's not about me. My family is an unmitigated disaster. From my father's quadruple bypass/open heart surgery, to Little Boy on the verge of being kicked out of pre-k, I'm surrounded by Hot Mess.

My dad's surgery was sudden and unexpected, so therefore much more dramatic. My sister & brother are with my mom & dad in Florida thankfully, but that in and of itself is causing some drama. It turns out that my aging father has been digging a rather large financial hole for awhile now. On the cusp of his surgery, he confessed a few details to my mother, who in turn has enlisted my brother and sister to help sort through it all. I think we've only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. It's looking like a rather large iceberg at this point. Not good. Making things worse is my dad's current dementia. No other word to describe it, happened the last time he had surgery too, due to low sodium levels and anesthesia complications. Hopefully his right mind will return soon, but even so, his days as financial manager of his house are over.

Little Boy has been acting out at pre-k, so much so that B. and I have a conference with his teachers next week to see if he will be able to continue. He's been hitting, poking, pushing and biting his classmates. Yes, biting. Behavior you might expect to see from a two year old, but a four year old? Not so much. He and Little Girl are the youngest in their class, which I think is a contributing factor. I hope we can figure out a solution, 'cause if he gets kicked out of pre-k, momma's not going to be happy. At all.

And B.? Driving me nuts. So completely, ridiculously self-involved that I want to strangle him. Or at the very least, chuck his goddamn computer out the window. Things are not good between us right now.

Despite the shitstorm swirling around me, my head remains above water, if only barely. Thank goodness for modern chemistry and the drugs it created.

Itching & bitching.

Plaguing me of late? Eczema. Around my mouth like a goatee, and on the sides of my neck. I've been to the dermatologist three times, and have exhausted all the traditional topical options (steroids, protopic) to no avail. Dr. doesn't want to try a systemic approach because I'm still breastfeeding.

I've had small flare-ups over the years, but nothing even remotely close to this. It looks truly horrible. The icing on my isolation cake, making me want to cry every time I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. And the itching, sweet jeebus the itching. I'm keeping my nails short so that I don't accidentally tear my face off.

Triggers? Not sure. Obviously some emotional/stress component, but I've been crazy plenty of times in the past without eczema flaring up. Might be the crappy water quality at our new house. Might be some weird allergic reaction. The flare-up began before we moved, but got dramatically worse this summer.

Things I've tried:

Drinking apple cider vinegar & using it topically
Too many eczema creams/lotions/unguents/potions to count
Evening primrose oil, orally & topically
UV, otherwise known as sunshine
Cool moisture
Warm moisture
Doing nothing and leaving it alone

Things that have worked:

Nothing

Sadly, Little Boy is having a flare up as well, although his is much smaller & less irritating to him. Our simultaneous conditions would point to an environmental cause, but how in the world do you figure out what?

Mentally, hanging in there. Still hating my life, then feeling like shit for hating it. Vicious cycle. Meds still working, thankfully. B. is driving me insane, but that's nothing new.

Baby is lovely, almost ten months old, almost crawling, still no teeth (!), getting better at eating solids, and just a happy spirit in general (if I'm around, that is). I've never been so enmeshed with another human being before (didn't have that luxury with twins) and oddly, I don't mind. Given how much I did not want Baby to exist, I'm surprisingly non-resentful and accepting of her. Thankfully.

Is the curtain lifting...or coming down?

Sad to say, this blog is no longer where I feel I can come to vent or bitch & moan. Too many of my readers (confirmed and suspected) are people I know in real life, and like many bloggers before me it affects what I write. Maybe it's time to start another, more anonymous blog? I dunno. I barely have the energy to maintain this one, but perhaps that's partly because it's not a true reflection of my life.

So how have I been deceiving you? What sordid details have I been keeping from you? Wouldn't you like to know?

If only my life were that interesting.

Mostly I've been hiding how much I'm losing my mind. Sure, there are days where I'm okay, but there are also days when I'm not. Medication has helped, but it hasn't fixed my life. I don't think anything can, short of a one-way plane ticket to Anywhere Else. And that's what I dream of, almost constantly. Lately, things have gotten worse because B. no longer has any patience with me. If I'm anything less than happy, patient, gracious, grateful and loving he's extremely short tempered with me. I feel like I have to have my Happy Face on constantly, and keep stuffing down all the misery that's swirling around inside me at any given moment. Add to that an almost complete lack of contact with adults, and well, it's a pretty potent mix.

My unhappiness manifests itself in mundane ways. I'm drinking too much. That means a couple of glasses of wine every night instead of one or two nights a week. I'm eating too many sweets. I'm shopping too much, albeit for things we "need," but given our perilous financial situation, it'd be better if I could exercise more restraint. I've actually been a better mother the past few months (thanks Z0loft!) but at what cost to me? Is there even a "me" left?

I'm not sure.

Stay tuned...