Nails on Chalkboard

This is a bit of a rant, but, it addresses the very thoughts that plague me most often these days...

After 12 weeks of maternity leave staying home with Oggie, I decided to quit my job. Without my job, we can't afford to send Ana to full-time daycare and it makes no sense to send her away. So, she stays home most of the time - she does miss her social life/friends/play etc., so she goes to daycare part time a couple of times a week.

Now that I've been an SAHM for almost 6 months, tending to a willful and energetic 3-yr old and a cuddly little infant, with practically no extra help for the last 2 months, I am all the more convinced that it is impossible to get any personal/professional work done with 2 little kids to tend to at home - that in itself is a full-time job - not to mention loads of laundry, cooking, cleaning etc.

Well, I suppose if one mostly ignores the older child, and simply feeds and leaves the infant laying around, with little or no interaction or stimulation, one can manage to get other things done... but that is cruel - kids didn't ask to be born - it is my pleasure and responsibility to bring out the best in them with proper encouragement and interaction...

And therein lies the catch: If Nurturing and Raising the kids alone were my full-time job to which I am able to dedicate my skills, resources, and creativity, such as they might be, without worrying about keeping up-to-date on the professional front (dreading that someday soon I'd be forced to get back in the workforce to supplement family income), or indulging in simple activities like crochet, sewing, crafts, yoga, walking, cooking to allow for personal well-being, I suppose it would seem a lot easier.

I am sure there are supermoms out there who want to make it all seem easy, possibly being sugary sweet, exhibiting monumental patience and inexhaustible cheer, remaining perfectly sane, finding Music in their child's every howl. But, I am not one of them. I am every bit flawed as mere mortals are designed to be, and I do tend to get upset and stressed and ready to scream at times - especially at times when Ana gets terribly whiny as she can't have her way (like, play on the pool table downstairs, or go to the park) while Oggie screams his lungs out deciding to be fussy no matter what - well, those are the times I explode with the classic nails on the chalkboard feeling... and, am assuming this is "normal", whatever that is...

Isn't it ironic that Nature programmed it into us mothers to respond with such agonizing discomfort when our little ones cry that deep-throated wail indicating 'nothing you try is going to pacify me now and I am going to remain fussy and scream like this till I am satisfied, however long it takes'? As Shakespeare put it:

I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge...
- Shakespeare, Henry IV

But, there it is, when Ana at 3 and Oggie at 5 months hit the right (I mean, wrong) frequency with their vocal cords, there is very little I can do to stop the grotesque noise from setting my teeth on edge. There. I said it. I must be a bad mommy for not finding Music in my babies' cries. It takes all of my patience and then some to try to locate and alleviate the discomfort that makes them caterwaul so.

Nope, it is not all bad. I do cherish the moments when Oggie flashes his toothless ear-to-ear smile when he sees my face, and Ana gives me an impromptu hug declaring, 'I love you, Amma'. And these more than make up for those harrowing times when I feel completely inadequate and wicked.