Love/Hate Relationship

Oh how I love my kids!  All of them.  So much, it literally hurts.  But I had to laugh out loud when a friend of mine posted this on facebook this morning:

Ha ha!  Not true....or is it?

I've said before, parenting is really hard for me.  I've never wanted anything more desperately in my life than to be a good parent.  And I've never felt so inadequate, incompetent and hopeless about anything either.   My kids are HARD!!!  They are ALL energetic, strong-willed, high-maintenance kids.  I don't have a single quiet or mellow one in the bunch.  Most of the time, I'm cool with that.  Our home is loud and crazy, but also happy.  But about two or three days per month, it all becomes too much for me.  Today is definitely one of those days.  In fact - I've been depressed, overwhelmed, and semi-hostile for a few days now.  I'm pretty sure that part of it has something to do with my surgery.  I was told that with one ovary still healthy, I shouldn't have any hormonal side effects.   Maybe my body is just adjusting because I can mentally see that my life is fine, but I still go around crying all day long and wishing I could just check-out for a while.

It seems that each of my kids takes a turn being the one that I worry over the most.  Right now, Josh and Bronson are kind of tied (I have a feeling these two are going to dominate my worry-wars for a few years to come).  I know that part of this is hormonal, but part of it is just that it's really hard!  Josh and Bron are tough.  We're talking anger, violence, and disrespect of biblical proportions (and I should know - I'm reading the Old Testament right now).

 ***UPDATE*** It's now three days after I wrote this post originally.  First of all, I HEAVILY edited it.  I took out all the really hopeless, ugly stuff (and now it's about 1/3 its original length).  Second of all, I'm feeling much better.  The kids are still crazy and my life is still overwhelming at times, but I'm not so miserable about it anymore.  It's beautiful chaos.  I just needed a lot of prayer, a lot of council and support from David, and a little time to pass.  I guess I like my kids after all (but I STILL dream of getting away with JUST David for a few days...someday...).