Confessions of An Exhausted Mommy

I've always been so proud of myself for being able to juggle all the demands of motherhood gracefully. Even when I thought I was dropping balls left and right, it appeared to the rest of the world that I had it all together. There were times that the rest of the world saw my indecision, my doubts, my obsessive worries...but even then, as I stood on the brink of falling to pieces, I always managed to come out smelling like a rose.

In this world of social media, its easy to appear to be Super Mom. We carefully choose the image that we put out into the world....an image that paints us in the best possible light and shows our kids as adorable little imps that we, of course, can't imagine our lives without. Motherhood through the lens we show the world is sunshine and rainbows most of the time.

Most of it, I'd venture to say, is pure bullshit.

Not to say that I don't adore my kids. I do. I'm mostly madly in love with them all. But I'm just gonna say it....I AM EXHAUSTED. I am overwhelmed at least 3 days out of 7 in a good week. And at least 10 times a day I dream of an icy cold pina colada sipped in a beach chair, toes in the sand, and no kids in sight. 

I've been a mom for a long time. I assumed that a new baby would be as easy as my others were and that all the stressfulness would ease up after we all settled into a new routine. Um. Wrong. There is no routine, other than ceaseless diaper changes, laundry, and feedings. Levi has been home for four weeks now and Liddy just decided that she might like him (although I asked her yesterday if she loved her brother, to which she promptly replied "No"). At least once a day, she cries when he cries (which by the way seems like alllll the time). And I truly don't understand how it is possible that I have a newborn who refuses to sleep...Aren't newborns supposed to sleep all the time? Liddy has morphed into an incredibly adorable toddler seemingly overnight, with every bit of the typical toddler naughtiness, and sees the new interloper as an opportunity to create mass chaos while the parental units are otherwise occupied.And while I totally pride myself on creating totally beautiful babies, now I see clearly that they use their cuteness as a way to sucker sappy mommies into getting out of bed on too little sleep and wading through the madness that is motherhood again tomorrow.

I'm realizing, unwillingly, that I am not Super Mom. I'm just a mom...with two kids in diapers, with a baby who is probably slightly colicky, and an almost constantly raging headache.

*sigh* This isn't necessarily what I signed up for.

I turned into an old lady overnight. More gray hair than red. Big bags under my eyes. High BP. 

Mad props from me to all you moms who do this by yourself or who have lots more than 2 little ones......I feel like I'm losing my mind at least 90% of the time. ;)

But they are cute, I'll give them that.......

If only I saw less of this face:

and more of this one:

Oh well. It won't be this crazy forever. And if it will, can you please just lie and say "Sure. It'll get easier..." Thanks.

Signed,

Sleep Deprived in Indiana