Today has been a day of feeling like an absolute failure...
I cooked cupcakes with my 2 year old. He was (surprisingly) super helpful and had a blast! But this then made me get sad and feel like I have totally failed my 8 year old because I never did anything fun like this with him when he was 2... then I decided to beat myself up a little bit for being young and stupid and selfish when he was little and always doing what I wanted and never making an effort to make things fun for him. Then I realized I rarely try to do fun things with my kids now and beat myself up a little more. Then I decided that because my youngest fell down at my in-laws last night and busted his bottom lip, has a giant swollen top lip, and displaced two teeth (which my dentist informed me may discolor to a grayish color over the next few days/couple weeks and just be that way until his permanent teeth come in) that this must mean I am a horrible mother for not watching him more closely. I'm even more horrible because I waited until this afternoon to call the dentist and ask what I should do about the displaced teeth, etc.
ps - there's nothing we can do, really. Only hope they are not displaced so much that it affects his bite (which I don't think they are).
On top of this, my oldest is going on a field trip to see a local ballet company perform The Nutcracker and he asked me to be a parent volunteer... AFTER we already signed the permission slip and didn't mark the volunteer box. His Friday classroom newsletter stated they already have their parent volunteers and don't need any others. So, I told him that perhaps he and I could have a "date" together and go see The Nutcracker on a weekend soon. Except that our weekends are booked solid through Christmas. ...not to mention tickets are incredibly expensive.
I'm hoping very much that a trip to the movies to see Frozen and a cheeseburger at a local chain restaurant will suffice as replacement.
...but it's not a good replacement in my head. I want to be able to take him to see The Nutcracker. I could make the time, I could cancel some of our other plans to make it happen... unfortunately that doesn't do anything about the financial issue. And that makes me depressed and feel like a failure because it's somehow my fault that our area has a high cost of living... which, it's obviously not. I have a good job, make a decent salary, and we do as well with our money as we can... but that doesn't change the fact that we just had to spend nearly $400 on car repairs last week, just took a trip out of town, and still have Christmas shopping to do. Not mention who knows what this dental visit for the baby will cost tomorrow!! (We don't have dental insurance.)
Everything is very overwhelming. I'm in a bad, bad headspace and I just really don't know that there's anything I can do at this point to pull out of it. I'm looking forward to the holiday, but am also somewhat dreading it knowing that my busy season at work will begin just week after the start of the new year, and it may put me into a very real and true mental breakdown.
I won't even get into the emotional ups and downs of my granddad's illness and hopeful recovery.
I am very lost. Maybe I need some Jesus in my life. 'Tis the season?
Maybe we could (in the new year) look up a kids' theater and take our together or something. It won't be the Nutcracker, but we can do it on our schedule and budgets. Or maybe you can bring yours over for a playdate one night and we'll have the kids make and create their OWN play. We could even film it for them. That wouldn't cost a thing. because believe me, financially I'm probably more in need of cheap fun than you guys.
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