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Logged Out for Privacy 12:43 PM 08-09-2012
Thank you so much everyone for your encouragement. It means a lot to me. It really does.

I have not called Nan yet. I wanted to give it a little bit after I posted before I made the decision to do that...(thanks for the offer to speak, Nan, really do appreciate it!). I was emotional at the time I posted and even though I do know and recognize that I have a problem, I think that, by airing my fears and the path I'm currently down, I have sort of keyed in to what might be the issue.

The kids are bored. Plain and simple. I have spent so much time trying to keep up with disorganization, clutter, and general messiness that the children are leaving behind that transition times are lasting longer than I'd really want. It's during those transition times that I am stressed to the 9's because they are looking for things to do and I'm not there for them.

Right now, I have 5 kids. Two of them are my own. Ages are all between 1 year and 3 years. Three of them are under 2, two of them are between 2 and 3.

It's not the number of children I find overwhelming. Nor the age ranges. It's the lack of imagination on my part to keep these kids entertained. They're happy, they're safe. BUt I am so big on routine that if something doesn't go as I had planned, it's, in my mind, a complete catastrophe (hence my freak-out over my son and DCG waking up much much too early from their naps)

So, two issues in my mind that I need to address: I need to accept that routine will not always happen (this is really hard for me), and I need to find some way for 5 kids, between 1 and 3, to find something that they can do safely together during transitional times. I I really can't sacrifice any time for sanitizing but I can reduce pick-up time by teaching the older kids to start picking up after themselves. My house is very small...just a 2 bedroom bungalow (which we will be renovating and expanding on in the spring) so right now we don't have space for a designated play area. So i have to keep clutter to a minimum. the biggest problem is that the kids don't do their share of cleaning and I'm getting overwhelmed with that.

*sigh* anyway, after I originally posted I found I do feel better, and the kids and I have had a better day. :-)
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