In a Funk

I hate complaining on my blog because I read blogs by other people who are going through suffering that makes mine look miniscule, and question whether it is even "suffering" itself or simple selfishness.  I've read some amazing books lately ("Rena's Promise", "A Thousand Sisters", and "January First") which will make you sit back and feel horrible that you even equated your life with any kind of suffering. I mean look at my life! I won the infertility lottery. I had triplets with an uneventful pregnancy. We have an emergency fund. My marriage is fine. Our health is fine. But my goodness, my kids have gotten on my nerves the last few weeks.
You see, I have two huge pet peeves. Like those pet peeves that actually make my polite Southern self want to slap someone. They are (1) invasions of personal space (hello Wal-mart) and (2) babies' crying. I tell Nate it's like him being on I-40 driving towards Knoxville with 2 trailer trucks side by side going 50 mph for 3 hours and you are late for the most important meeting of your life.

Unfortunately, crying is a common occurrence in my life right now.  Colds, molars, messy sleep schedules, one nap 3 days a week, and adjusting to new classrooms have made my kids AWFUL the past two weeks. We've had days and days of extreme, contagious crying between 7-10pm. I can only sing "Itsy, Bitsy Spider" for so long. Caroline has these in between sleep states where she isn't fully awake and screams like she is being attacked until she finally "wakes" up. Then Natalie has had the worst case of our weekly cold and starts crying because Caroline is screeching and she is also teething. Then Townes joins in for a good ol' time because HE'S getting his 2 top teeth and is starting to have real temper tantrums. Last resort is "Baby Einstein" or my newly bought "Praise Baby" DVD. Then I feel horribly guilty because I'm making my kids zombies with TV time. But it really is the only thing that snaps them out of their crying jags. 

During the day, they haven't been much better. Natalie doesn't know she is a triplet and needs to be held all the time. Caroline trips and hits her head 8 times a day so what do I do with her then?  And Townes has his spitting mad moments. Then the "multiples guilt" comes in and I feel bad that they aren't given more attention one on one. Thankfully I have lots of help and 3 days of rest.  How I really know I'm in a funk is that on those 3 days of rest, I count down the hours until we pick them up from daycare. I feel horrible anxiety at 10 am because I've only got 6 hours. I've been trying to get contract legal work but all these doors keep getting shut. I actually don't want to have 3 days by myself because I'm doing the same mindless things every day- nap, cleaning, laundry, maybe workout. We went to more time at school because I want to challenge my mind a bit. I know God has a reason for all of this, but I really don't know why these things haven't worked out. I do ask why make my life more complicated, but I need to feel like I am accomplishing something beyond going to the grocery store.

Nate finally called me out this week and said I'm starting to get depressed. I can tell now. My anxiety is keyed up like a slow buzz of electricity. There is always a background of buzz of worrying about crying later that night, worrying that the kids aren't happy, worrying that some things will not happen that we need to happen LIKE NOW, worrying that there is no solution for our problems. I need to exercise and drink less caffeine. But then I don't work out and drink Starbucks which equals more guilt. (Another sign of depression? Excessive worry and guilt!!) Of course this is mild comparative to my post partum months, but it's still a funk none the less.

I don't know what the answer is this time around. I do admit to being much more hard headed and not casting my care on God like I did while going through the years of infertility and the first few months of the triplets' life.  I have some rebelliousness and stubbornness that needs to be worked out. I'm working on it slowly.