My family is driving me bonkers...

My Dad came into town for a doctor's appt today. He came in last night and I visited with him and ran him up to the doctor. Then, I had to run Little A and Baby L up for their visit. After all that, we grabbed some Chick-fil-A for lunch and brought it home to eat and then I put the babies down for their naps. My brother Jimmie called to see if we could get him from the field house up at school and since we couldn't all fit in the van and my Dad can't stay with the foster kids while I went to get him, he offered to take Deidra with him and drive my van up there and back.

So, I sat and enjoyed some quiet time with Little A while they were gone. They come back and my Dad started getting testy that Deidra had to be right on top of him or attached to him wherever he went. I snapped a little bit at that as she doesn't get to see him that much at all...heck he's only here once a year usually or twice if we're lucky. And there's been some years that we haven't seen him at all. Anyway, they started picking at Deidra and tickling her and so forth and she wound up trying to get away and slammed her head into the back of the couch. She started crying and woke Baby L up (he was way tired and had only been asleep for about 5 minutes). I couldn't get him back to napping and he just started screaming. I've never seen him that worked up. I walked into the pantry to see what to make for dinner and my brother said he wanted mac and cheese. Baby J is acting up left and right and so I send him to his room as he wasn't wanting to sit nice in time out. He slaps me in the face and my patience was running thin. I put him in his room and explain to him that we do not hit and slap people and that he was in time out for doing so. I come downstairs and my Dad is laughing. Once again I'm trying to get Baby L calmed down and everyone is talking about how they're hungry. So, I'm standing at the stove with a screaming baby trying to make mac and cheese. My brother chooses this time to start telling me that I need to clean my laundry room. Yeah, I can totally do my own laundry when my Dad is doing his before he has to leave. Anyway, I tried to ignore it and just didn't say anything. My Dad finally says "I think you gave the baby a bellyache with how much you've been feeding him. Every time I turn around you have a bottle in his mouth." Gee Dad, the baby eats every couple of hours and hasn't eaten that much at all today...he's failure to thrive...I think he NEEDS to eat. Once again, I let it slide and don't say anything. The girls start fighting over something and I told them both that they need to quit fighting over such stupid things and just be respectful of each other and Deidra decides to call me a liar which totally got my goat. I brought her into the pantry and told her that she is NEVER to talk to me like that again and I sent her to her room. She comes down a few minutes later so that I could talk to her and she asks if she can get a toy from the store and I tell her that I'm not going to reward her behavior and that she will not be getting a toy because of how she talked to me. My Dad says "you need to simmer down, you're being too hard on her." NO, I'm teaching her consequences...thank you. Once again I let it slide and I told him that she needs to understand that she cannot talk to her parents that way and I'm not rewarding her for her behavior.

Poor Andy finally comes home and I ask him if he can empty the noodles for me and him not knowing what's going on says "Umm, Jess, how long did you cook these noodles for?" I snapped at him that I had had a total mess of meltdowns to deal with and they got a bit overcooked." He looked at me like he totally didn't know what hit him.

To top it all off, we get dinner cooked and my brother says "Oh, I'm not eating I'm going to Wal-mart with Mom" and my Dad says he's going with them as he needs to get his meds and so I made 5 boxes of macaroni and cheese for nothing. And my brother said some snide comment about my Mom and we started playing around and I said "hey, she was my Mom first." His comeback (and I know he was just joking but it really stung) "well she gave birth to me." They laughed about it. Maybe it's stress and hormones (my monthly visitor just left the building), but that really hurt. I had to fight tears and I was not going to let them see me cry. They left for the store and I just vented to Andy.

I put the kids to bed early and I'm making the big kids go to bed early too as I think part of their problem is that they keep wanting to stay up late. Andy finally told them that the reason we have a bedtime for them as early as we do is so that all this chaos doesn't happen because people are overtired. I think Little A finally got it...that or she saw how upset I was and didn't want to test the boundaries. I thought I did a pretty good job of holding myself together though.