Fleargh

Which is to say, meh.

I feel as though I am depressed. Wherefore?

I am tired. Like, inordinately tired. All of the time. If I sleep for 9 hours straight? Still tired.

I eat. A lot. Normal people will not typically consume an entire box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies in a single sitting just because they're there.*

Sleepy. Tired. Eating everything that doesn't eat me first. And? Did I mention the grouchiness? All classic signs of depression.

Tonight was a kind of grouchy night. The girls were fractious and/or mischevious by turns. There was shrieking and tears and galloping and eating of catfood by turns. I caught Tank down the hall sticking Q-tips in her ears. The Bear was surprised by the cat around a corner and you would have thought she ran into an axe-wielding zombie. I caught the cat balanced on the edge of the baby's crib, just waiting to cause trouble. The Bear woke up after ten minutes asleep, crying for Other Grandma and Other Grandpa. My patience was shot by about 7:45.

I think that one of the reasons I'm irritated is that I'm the go-to person for the kids. All the time. Most days, they don't even see their father. He's off to work before they're up, and home after they're asleep. If they're up in the night, it's me. Weekends? Me. It's not that he doesn't love them. He does. It's that he's never around. They're used to me taking care of their every need, and so now I'm the only one that they want. Hurt? Mom. Scared? Mom. Sad? Mom. Sick? Mom. Need someone to reach the light switch? Mom. Can't do your buttons? Mom. Poop during dinner and need someone to leave the table and come wipe your ass? Mom. Notice that the cat needs food and won't stop pestering someone til she gets fed? Mom.

Am I beating a dead horse here? You get it. They just have no desire to let Dad help them do anything. The Bear has come right out and said it - don't want Dad, only want Mom. That's a lot of pressure on me. There are times when they'll let him do things - read a story, put them to bed, etc., and I love to see that. It's just not all the time.

Sure, we have extenuating circumstances. He works a lot of overtime, and it brings in a lot of extra money for us. He purposely works the overtime during the week so that he can (usually) spend the weekends home with us. He's carrying a huge part of the burden of moving, bill paying, house selling, etc., and he does it without ever complaining. He does a lot of the communicating between his parents and me. All of that makes a decent trade-off for being an absentee parent. It's just bothering me lately because the girls are a little edgy. It's that wintertime, cooped up in the house, no place to get out all that energy, cabin fever sort of edgy, I think.

Whatever. Enough rambling. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say, except that I'm tired and frazzled and depressed.


*Right?