And then my brain exploded

We have been back from Indy since last Monday, but I just haven't felt like blogging. Mommyhood is kicking me in the proverbial balls lately. I feel like I just can't get a break. Out of desperation, I finally did what all other normal people do in my situation -- leave my kids alone with our babysitter for two full hours. I did this on Friday morning. I went to Starbucks and made major accomplishments towards my next book. I also bumped into our old babysitter and the parents of our new friends Camille and Noah. That made me feel quite a lot better for about a day.

Although Jacob's incessant fussing and requests to have his 27-lb frame schlepped everywhere are a decent part of my frustration, I identified the real problem twenty minutes into a family trip to everyone's favorite store, IKEA, the entirety of which I spent screaming at my husband. In front of my kids. It's not that I need a break. It's that I'm sick of being responsible for them. You know, my job? I'm sick of my job.

The decision for me to stay home when we moved to Delaware was a mutual and welcome one. Dada and I are gigantic yellow bellies who do not possess the intestinal fortitude to leave our babies at daycare. Up to this point, my staying home was a decision I never questioned, not even once. I'm sure I was helped along in my resoluteness by the fact that not one of my friends in the Professors' Wives Club had a job. These were all highly educated, employable women who, like me, chose to (temporarily) ditch a career in favor of trying to raise well-adjusted children while supporting the insane demands of our husbands' pretenure jobs.

But suddenly I look around and notice that my peer group has changed. Not necessarily in roster. Of the five professors' wives I regularly hang out with, two have become professors themselves. Another, who swore to my face that she was never, ever going back to work, not even when her kids were in school, now relishes her job waitressing on weekends.

What is going on?

I look at George the Green Car's speedometer roll near 80,000 miles and know that we will likely need a new car in the next year. I see my (employed) friends hiring a cleaning lady while my bathroom grout rots away from mildew as I put off cleaning it to do yet another load of dishes or laundry. I turn around in my house and, guided by Dada's trained eye, suddenly worry that we can't keep up our aging, droopy house, with its 50-year-old roof and windows in need of replacement. And so I luuuuuuuuuuust, hot and heavy, for the money our dual-income friends enjoy.

Yes, I write books, but there is no money in that, seriously. If I told you what I make from it (and I get no royalties), you would wonder why I bother. So I stay up late looking online for job opportunites at corporations or nearby universities, but I don't really know what to look for -- I've never had to look for a job before. I know that, even if I got something part-time, I could make enough money for us to be much more comfortable. To have the almighty things that we need. New rugs to replace our stained and torn-up ones, new bedroom furniture for the big people so we can stand to share a bed, new tile for our rotting bathroom, new clothes to replace my worn-down jeans and t-shirts. Oh, how much happier we would be.

I think in this way for a time, perhaps swaying towards marching on-campus and looking for a flexible sciency job, until things happen like today. This morning as I left Isaac, who hasn't cried about preschool in over two weeks, he was hit full-bodied with the force of missing me when I will be gone for a mere 2-1/2 hours. He stood at the window of the door and I could see his face, contorted with the effort of crying even through my blown kiss, as I drove away.

And I realize that, you know, I've done that schtick before, leaving him at day care for 5 and 6 hours every day. Oh, he was fine, but I remember what it was like for me. He was in day care from July 2004 to July 2005, and not a single day passed during that time where I didn't have trouble concentrating at work thinking about him. They must have really enjoyed me at his day care with how much I called.

So I can't, I just can't go back to work yet. I will say it now -- I want to. I really do. But I want it for all the wrong reasons. I want to go back so we can afford to make our house the way we want it to be. I want to go back so we can have the money to get all the things to make our lives just the tiniest bit easier. I also want to go back because I'm not sure how much more of Jacob's fussing and their mutual tantruming I can handle. How much longer can I fight? I'm suddenly afraid that having me around is not what they need right now, because my brain is cluttered with all this stupidness and not with them. Will they get hurt because I'd rather see one more load of laundry done than stick around in the room for that crucial second when Isaac's going to push Jacob to the ground? Am I being too rough with Jacob in just trying to get him to be still while I change yet another diaper full of runny diarrhea poop?

When I'm with one of them, it's just so easy. When I'm with both of them, my brain splits so far open that I just want to shut down. Add to that our financial woes, oh, and did I mention that my grandpa had congestive heart failure over the weekend, and that my grandma's sister is in a hospital in Houston, unable to be transported home to Missouri because she is in such awful pain from the multiple tumors they found in her body during a surprise visit to the ER?

Yeah. So that's why I haven't been blogging. But I have been trying to play.