What is the contrast?

Today is the contrast.

Today was not enough sleep last night. Sick kid in arms for the past three days. Other kid in time-out or in a full tantrum (or both) far too much. And way too much tv.

Today was ugly and painful and seemingly unstoppable.

It was complicated by the fact that I felt like my husband was judging me all day.

I felt like he thinks I am solely responsible for my daughter's totally out-of-control behavior because I am too easy on her and I screwed up and told her about death (our sheep was eaten by a coyote and I told her and at the same time explained what "meat" really is) when she was two and a half.

(It seems a little insane as I write it but at the time it just really felt like the right thing to do. Lying about it felt wrong. Evading her questions felt wrong. Remembering how devastated I was when some of these types of issues entered my reality when I was much older, I thought if I just made it a "no big deal...it's nature...it's just how it is" kind of thing, that that is just what it would be.

It wasn't. But that's a story for another day.)

Today all the (unnamed until now) guilt that I've been feeling about putting my one-year-old in daycare three mornings a week so I can write and go to yoga and take a shower by myself, and go grocery shopping without anyone "helping" me, really came crashing in on me.

And my anxieties about what is happening with my daughter's increasing anxieties and my fears and guilt that maybe my husband is right and I did totally screw her up by giving her too much information too soon.

And a house that has not been cleaned, organized, loved, or even noticed in well over a week. And a husband who fortunately, has been cleaned, but not loved in the way that a husband loves to be loved, in far too long.

And stress about not knowing what the heck I want to cook and/or eat yet again.

And ongoing feelings of discouragement about my weight.

This is the contrast and when/if I am ready, it will be my great teacher!