Parenting is hard

It's been a rough few days. For reasons unknown to me, both boys have been just awful all week. I find myself feeling like a stripped screw - jagged and ineffective; barking orders and slamming things (thankfully not the children) around, even swearing. It sucks. I am not prepared for the overlap of terrible twos and horrible threes. 

After yet another frustrating day with a toddler who now refuses to eat anything outside of breakfast, throws everything on the ground and then screams if you try to take it away, fights all diaper changes, car transfers, everything, we get to school to discover Bobby has just wet his pants. Cue screaming crying fit while I attempt to change him in the school bathroom with his whole class looking on and his brother running around touching everything. He doesn't like those pants, he doesn't like those shoes, he doesn't want those underwear, all with me finally having to threaten to walk out and leave him before he'd agree to get dressed. Then more screaming and crying in the car, being mean to his brother because all that anger has to go somewhere, me barking at him for screaming at/pushing his brother, him screaming at me that I make him sad, etc. Then when I finally drag us all up the three flights of stairs kicking and screaming to our house, they both run around like maniacs while I attempt to cook dinner and then they both refuse to eat even a bite of any of it, after which I bitterly throw it all in the garbage, complaining to no one how glad I am I wasted all that time and food for nothing. 

Today more bullshit with refusing to put on shoes, refusing to use the potty, refusing to get in the car, a toddler who squirmed and screamed and threw things on the floor during an ill-advised lunch date and then refused to eat any lunch once we got home, that I finally just plunked in his crib and slammed the door, with resultant screaming.

I am so fucking over this. But there is no escape. No amount of date nights, vacations, babysitting money nor preschool will change the fact that little kids, most of the time, are horrible. This is the life I've chosen and I have no choice but to push forward. 

This morning my Brazilian cousin, the one person from my father's family who I'm connected to on Facebook, messaged to tell me my father has had a heart attack and is awaiting surgery that he was already scheduled for in Feb that they're hoping can be moved up. He's had heart issues on and off for years. He's not old - still in his sixties - but I have to accept that this might be "it". I have not seen the man since 1980 and our contact since has been sporadic at best; I feel ambivalent about him but also sad in that we'll never get to "work anything out", whatever that means. I don't know what happens when he dies; there's no way I can just hop on an airplane to Brazil. I might stand to inherit some land, but knowing how shady he is I wouldn't be surprised if his vague promises in that department were just a pipe dream (I am his only child). Anyway. It's that time of life - wrestling with small children and also coping with your own ailing parents. And so it goes.