The hole in the wall

This is the hole Zach punched in the wall last weekend. He's not a violent person and as far as I know, he's never done anything like that before. But it just goes to show you that things in this house are insane lately and how stressed out we've been about the state of things.

We got back from our trip out of town late on Sunday (which I never got to write about - maybe I will this weekend) and the house was 81 degrees. Zach had run all the wires for the new thermostat before we left for the weekend and had set it up for an electrician friend of his to stop by while we were gone to do the final wiring stuff that he couldn't do. Zach was trying to get it shut off but he wasn't having any luck. Two hours later and no success, he punched the hole in the wall. I would have only lasted an hour, and my hole would have been from kicking it.

What really sucks is that's the wall that Zach just put in a few months ago. It's so new that only half the project was completed. I'm still waiting for the cubby part of the closet/cubby project to be finished. But I figure it's the same concept as when I wear shoes in the house (which no one is supposed to do). "It's ok for me to wear shoes in the house if I'm just running back into the house for something because I'm the one who cleans the floors!" I rationalize. So if Zach's the one building the walls, then I guess it's up to him if he wants to punch a hole them.

It's that whole one step forward, two steps back thing though. Spend all this time running the lines, have the electrician come over, but then you've got to start from the very beginning the next day anyway. Build a wall up, knock a hole in it, then spent the next three days applying many coats of tape, spackle, primer and paint. Nothing in our lives seems to be going smooth lately.

He's working a lot, I'm alone with the kids a lot, and it takes a toll on us. I wrote back in December (second paragraph) how to have children feels like one of your vital organs is walking around outside your body. I'd said when Jacob was born it was like my heart was no longer contained inside my chest cavity. I've decided that Sabine has taken my brain. That's how I'll refer to them now: "These are my kids, 5 and 9 months, this is Heart, the little one, well we like to refer to her as 'Mommy's Brain.'" I'm doing stupid things, forgetting easy information, and worst of all, I'm becoming an unreliable person. I forget things now. Important things. And I don't like it. I don't want to be that person. Two days in a row I told a friend that I would leave something my front porch for her, and two days in a row I've forgotten. I couldn't keep the thought in my brain long enough to hit 'send' on the e-mail, walk down to the basement, move the sheet rock out of the way, and carry it upstairs to the front steps. I feel like suck a jerk.

I called Zach to complain about a couple things and he said, "I don't know what your problem is, why you're so mad all the time..." I thought about it, but I didn't have to think long because just after we hung up the phone I had to put Sabine into the playstation so she'd be safe while I was running up and down the stairs with the table and chairs. She cried the whole time, which put my stress level to a certain undesirable amount. Then Jacob was hungry, so I got a some fruit ready for him and a drink, finished cutting the lotion container open so I could put some on my severly chapped hands, and by the time I was done with that Jacob was inquiring about Zach being home. When I told Jacob that it was going to be another late night for Zach, Jacob had a good cry over that. Which raised my stress level more. I eased him out of sadness by offering some canteloupe. I was going to cut it up but something happened with Sabine that I had to tend to. After that I was holding her and she didn't want to be put down. I was just about to sit down to feed her but had to tell Jacob the canteloupe was going to have to wait. He didn't like that and I felt torn between two different kids needing two different kinds of foods. I couldn't simultaneously provide for both their needs and that gave me a great deal of stress. So back to the kitchen I headed to cut up the cantenoupe. Of course I'd just put on lotion, but that figures, once I get a chance to do something for myself, it's usually undone because of something like that. It went back and forth like that for the next hour, ending in my dragging Jacob upstairs, screaming at him, "You're tired!" and, "Yes you are, you don't know what tired is!" And him screaming over me, "No I'm not! I'm not tired!" The two of us, repeatly screaming that in each other's faces. Hilarious. Now my stress level is so high I want to throw someone out the window. When the stress gets to be that much and that intense, you'd do things you never thought you'd be capable, and I guess in some situations that's how child abuse happens.

I don't really know what my point is in all this. The moral isn't Don't have kids, never in a million years would I wish my life was any different. I guess maybe if there has to be a point, then I am calling for some action: Someone please invent a remote control that will turn your kids off,or at least throw them into slow-motion mode. Or perhaps invent a time-stopper. Something along the lines of that. But what I'm really writing this for is so that when the kids are older and I have this vague recollection of of feeling up to my neck in that "I've had it" feeling, I can remember exactly what about the days were so trying. Or if Jacob ends up in school after only half a year of homeschooling, I can remind myself why I just couldn't take it anymore. And I'm writing for practiccality's sake, so when Zach gets home I can show him and say, that's what my problem is. Only, it's not a problem, it's my life, and I guess I wouldn't change it even if I could.