Semi-serious question: are you allowed to have a case of the Mondays when you’re a stay-at-home Mom? I mean, it’s not like you’re returning to the office after the weekend off from your kids, right? Maybe for some, the weekend means the presence of a co-parent who takes the load off somewhat. But since Hubby is working more often than not on the weekends, it’s all pretty meaningless to me.  Sometimes, the only way I know it’s Sunday is if I pull up to the library with the kids and realize it’s closed. (That’s never fun).

Whether it’s a case of the Mondays or something else, I am a grumpy-pants today.  I think it’s just a death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts situation.

Here are some of the particularly smarting paper cuts I’m dealing with now:

• Yesterday, our neighbor put on a clinic in passive-aggressive behavior.  While we were sitting on the couch watching some football, we looked out our window to behold him in our front yard with a pole saw.  What the fuck?  Turns out he had invited himself over to saw off the wasp nest up in our tree — the one that he couldn’t stop obsessively asking us what we were going to do about.  Honestly, my blood still boils when I think about it.  Mind your own business, old man, and get off my fucking lawn.  The nest was really high up in the tree, and because it was so high, the wasps weren’t really disturbing anyone.  And frankly, Hubby was kind of (adorably, inexplicably) attached to the colony and didn’t want to off it.  And the neighbor just came over, sawed the nest down, bagged it, and walked away.  Didn’t knock on our door to say he was doing it or anything.  Not fucking cool at all.
• Last night was Hubby’s third overnight shift at the hospital in a row.  Which means he was gone each night from 6pm until 8 or 9am, and then slept at home the next day until 2 or 3 pm.  Now obviously that schedule sucks big balls for Hubby, but this blog is about me, so let me tell you why it sucks for me.  First, I’m pretty sure my basement is the Upside Down and there is a Demogorgon lurking around down there.  (In other words, it’s scary here alone).  Second, handling the kids all by myself during the witching hour, bath time, and bedtime sucks all of the life out of me.  I literally collapse in a heap on the couch when I’m done, and I only get up to refill my Pringles and wine.  Third,  when Hubby is sleeping in the house during the day, we have to be very quiet.  It is so easy and not at all stressful trying to keep an almost-three-year-old quiet, you guys.
• We are potty training K-Man, and he is going through a sleep regression, all at the same time.  It.  is.  hell.  He has obviously figured out that a pretty surefire way to get out of bed at night is to tell us that he has to go potty.  So you can imagine that he has to go potty every five minutes.  Sometimes, he even has to go potty before we can get his underwear back on again.  I can’t, you guys.  I am losing it on all kinds of new levels and it’s not pretty.  I am trying to really dig deep to find some serenity, but it is exhausting.
• I’m having a bit of an expectations vs. reality struggle this holiday season.  For example, on Thursday, Hubby had the day off, so we planned to go somewhere and cut down our own Christmas tree.  I imagined fresh air, pine smell, gorgeous giggling kids, Hubby dressed as a sexy lumber jack, me looking flawless in all my Uggs glory, and an assortment of Instagram-worthy pictures to prove it happened.  Boy, am I stupid.  There was nothing especially awful about how it went down — we bought a pre-cut tree off the lot, there was some sort of polar vortex wind thing going on, Ell-Bell was a sad, crying mess, and I took two dimly-lit pictures — but I was super disappointed because I had let me imagination run wild beforehand.  I really need to learn that life does not happen in Instagram frames, and I should to adjust my expectations accordingly.  Can someone remind me of that again on Christmas Eve?

Anywhoozzle, gotta go yell at K-Man for the one-billionth time to be quiet so he doesn’t wake his dad up.  Until next time,

Vee