The Good, the Bad and the Really Ugly Side of Me!

The Good
This is my annual "THIS is why I love living in Florida" post. I know, I say it every year and I'll say it as long as I live in Florida: I love Florida winters! September always seems to drag on with the months of humidity we've already had, being trapped inside, sweating through your clothes just going out to the car and constant AC usage. October marks another fresh start, a new beginning. It means going on family walks in the evenings, it means I can tell the kids to go outside and play and they will for hours, it means I won't have to use the most commonly used phrase of the summer "Close the door!" as much, it means I can go out to the garage without sweating, it means no more humidity headaches, and definitely most importantly, it means it's now officially park season!

The weather has been amazing this week. It just happened one day, when I realized that the air was the absolute perfect temperature on my skin--not hot or cold--and that the pressure in the air was gone. Ahhh! It really gets so bad in the summer that I'm afraid to go outside for fear of getting a headache. But now, it's winter--or whatever. I guess you could call it fall. In my view there are only two seasons in south Florida: pool season and park season.

I think I will enjoy park season this year for a few reasons. Marissa is now old enough to climb on everything without me having to watch her so much (unlike last year as a one year old). The other day she and her friend took off their shoes somewhere in the park and were running around for over an hour like that. I wish I had a picture, but she kind of always looks like an orphan or a homeless person these days, what with her knocked out tooth, her wild hair that she always pulls out and the bare feet. She has fun anyway. Connor is not old enough to go anywhere yet and Erin and Alex are still young enough to find the park an extremely exciting place to go. As for me, I need the time with my friends too. Much better than taking all the kids to the pool and attempting to have a conversation with the moms while trying to keep your kids from drowning. Park season.

The Bad
Also, I have been so overwhelmed with taking care of the house lately. I'm hoping that spending more time at the park and in the backyard will help this problem some. I'm not talking about having a spotless house; I'm talking about doing normal everyday things like dishes and laundry and picking up. At least once or twice a week I feel down about my inability to do these simple things. In a matter or two days or less the house gets completely trashed, like really bad. It is so frustrating! It's like stringing beads on a string without a knot on the end of it.

When I was in school my house would get like this whenever I had major projects (okay, all semester when I had Design classes). But I assumed that it was just the way it was when I was in school and that things would be different when I didn't have that anymore. True, it is definitely easier and I clean more often, but it turns out that I'm just not a very tidy person. I wish I could be a neat freak, but I just can't keep up the charade. At least 2 or 3 times a week I'll get the house looking pretty good, but the days in between make it seem like I'd never done anything.

I feel like I'm the only one doing everything for 6 people. I know it's my job, but I guess I'm just not that good at it. Yes, I realize that my kids aren't quite old enough to do more than clean the toilet and that I have three kids who dump toys everywhere home with me all the time and that I'm nursing a baby 50% of my free time, but it's still so frustrating. I've heard that you always have one more kid than you can handle and I absolutely agree. We were getting by pretty well with three, but I think we are still at the three kid level. Jared does help at certain things and when I ask him, but it's still at the three kid level. It's not enough. Maybe it's just the demands of a new baby that throw me off. Anyway, I hope we catch up at some point. Until then, forgive the mess until we get things under control. That will happen, right?

Also, little Connor turned 4 months this week and he has his first cold. I've never heard of a baby losing his voice, but he did. He tries to cry but it's barely audible. Poor guy. I hope he feels better soon. He also got some immunizations today and has been sleeping for hours and hours with a little Vicks on his feet. You'd think I would have been able to get more done with him asleep for so long. Oh yeah, I have these other kids.

The Really Ugly Side of Me
This is a little hard to write because it shows a side of me that I don't really like, but here goes. I can delete it tomorrow, right? I'm what I refer to as a "Silent Explosive" (no idea if this is a real term or what, but I still use it). What this boils down to is that I am very calm and even tempered most of the time, until something makes me mad and I explode. And I mean really, really lose it. No, I'm not going to go out and kill anyone or drown one of my children, I just mean for me it's just pretty bad compared to the calm me. People get scared when I explode so I try not to let too many people in on it. Luckily it only happens once a year or so. I don't like it. I can recall this happening at work one time (oh man, I had a great boss who gave me the rest of the week off and whatever else I wanted) and once with my primary class. I am still so embarrassed that I got so mad for whatever reason, but it's just how I operate. Look, it's more like a look on my face that tells you to get out of my way.

Anyway, I exploded one day this week and I'm both happy and embarrassed about it. Embarrassed because a few of my friends saw me like this and were really concerned, but happy because I guess I had been holding in a lot of emotions without even realizing it. I don't know if this has anything to do with postpartum or not, but I feel like I've been a little emotionless since I've had the baby. Just like numb. I hadn't cried at all, and I think there were occasions when I should have. I also have been having trouble sleeping and I've never in my life experienced insomnia (of course with all my sleepless nights in Architecture school, you never know about my sleep patterns). It's not because of the baby either; he's slept through the night since he was 8 weeks old. I usually just lay there until I finally get up and do something. Nope, not housework--see paragraph 5. I do feel a lot better after getting that out and talking to a couple of people about it. Now we'll see if I can sleep tonight wondering if I should delete this part or not. Ugh.