Under Water

I feel so very overwhelmed. I'm trying to fight it and just be happy, but it's hard. I hope you'll forgive me this one desperate post because I so rarely talk like this or feel like this.
There is work. There is so much with work that I can't even mention, so I'll just say that work has been hard in so many ways. The only part of it that I can mention is my growing frustration with expending so much energy on other people's children that I have no energy for mine when I come home. I hate it, and I feel so guilty, not to mention like a mom failure because I'd much rather collapse on the couch at night than play or clean or even sometimes discipline. I used to think I had that balance between working and being a mom, but I think I've lost it. I fear how much more I'll lose it with two children. No matter how hard I try, there's always that ache inside of me because I just do not want to work, yet have no choice.

Yesterday I had this whole list of items to accomplish while Luke napped. Perfect plan, yet Luke refused to nap. I spent an hour rocking, patting, snuggling, and reading, almost getting him to sleep... when the doorbell rang. And it was shot. His nap time, the hour I spent, the list that would keep my head above water. Luke is not a child that can miss a nap, then be fine. Luke is the child that misses his nap and spends the rest of the day having a complete and utter meltdown. There were a lot of tears yesterday. From both of us.

This week is teacher appreciation week. Wednesday is my birthday (and, of course, there's a faculty meeting scheduled). You'd think the culmination of the two would mean a lot of appreciation for me, but it works out that as student council sponsor I am entirely in charge of teacher appreciation week. Or rather, my students are supposed to be, but they're in middle school. I can't exactly send them out in their cars to go buy supplies, can I? So I spent yesterday labeling 75 candy bars that I then distributed this morning (after I basically ruined them by leaving them in the car for five hours). Today, I'm picking up 75 carnations at the florist to distribute tomorrow. Wednesday and Thursday, I don't even remember, but we're doing something. Friday, I have to pick up several dozen donuts plus coffee to get set up in the teacher's lounge. Last year when I did similar activities, I got a total of ONE thank you. I appreciated teachers, but they definitely didn't appreciate me.

I want to breathe and push it all away, but instead, I just think of everything I need to get done before the baby comes. Luke's bed isn't set up yet. The bathroom needs to be painted. The baby items need to be taken out of the crawl space. Initially, we thought we'd have the entire month of June, but I'm now in school until June 11th. Did I mention that I then have a week of license renewal courses starting on June 15th? Then another week starting on July 6th? Oh, and the baby is due July 16th.

I know it will all get done in time. It always does. But knowing that doesn't help that my house is a mess, that the list just gets longer and longer, that I want nothing more than to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and say, "Wake me up in two months."