Really Tough

The last two days parenting these boys has been REALLY TOUGH.

So tough, in fact, that last night I crawled into bed in tears imagining doing this day after day, week after week, without Josh home by 4:30 to relieve me and help with the dinner & bedtime routine.  Not only will I not have Josh's help, I will have yet another son who will demand attention & have needs that require meeting.

But Josh leaving aside, yesterday sucked.  Whether or not I was thinking of doing this without him, it was awful.  The boys were up off & on all night from their "noses not working" and I couldn't sleep myself from this cough I have.  We stayed home the whole day and they were at each others' throats all.day.long.  And on top of the lack of sleep and fighting, they were just not listening.  They must have each had ten timeouts yesterday.

And because of being up all night, they "slept in" until 8am. Which meant that when I went to lay them down for naps, they were not tired.  So for an HOUR AND A HALF I struggled to try & get them to sleep.  They would not close their eyes. They kept talking, throwing their bubbas in the air. At one point they were both out of their beds playing "fight game" with each other. (Fight game is what they call wrestling/beating each other up.) At 1:50pm, I gave up and let them come out of their room.  I didn't know what else to do.

Then all afternoon they were completely intolerable because they hadn't napped and were super cranky.  Thank God Josh came home and took them to run some errands so I could have some peace and quiet.  What I really wanted was a nap, but it was too close to bedtime at that point.

I was hoping today would be better. They slept mostly through the night (Logan was up for about an hour, 1am-2am) and weren't awake until after 6:30am.  We had a good breakfast, I did a few chores around the house, got the three of us ready and we headed to the library. But the library was just another place to be naughty. They were not listening, trying to play fight game, running away from me.  Once we left, I had had it.

And now it's nap time.

I tried to calm things down, mentally starting over when we got home. I let them "help" me make lunch, let them choose a story to read before nap time, but as soon as I turned off the light & closed the door, they started talking & yelling & horsing around.

Then pretty soon, I'm screaming, Jack's plugging his ears, asking me to stop yelling and Logan is crying because he's in timeout for the fourth time.

I am losing my mind. I can't sleep. I am sick & exhausted, not to mention eight and a half months pregnant.

My head is killing me.

I just want them to listen, maybe the third time I ask them to,
go to sleep when I lay them down
and not play "fight game" incessantly.  

Is that too much to ask?