I can’t deal with it.

***This is the fourth post in one sitting. I have a lot on my mind and I haven’t had time to write in awhile***

I gotta vent cuz I’m having difficulty dealing.

My kids are getting older and don’t want to be around home anymore.
They would rather go to a friend’s house.
They’d rather be anywhere, but here.
OK, I exaggerate. But that’s how it feels.

I tell them to be home at a specific time, and then they call and ask if they can come home later.

I have my idea of the “perfect, smoothly run” home life and the kids come along and do their own thing.

They’re not disrespectful; they’re appropriate most of the time.

But they just go and don’t want to come home. Am I doing something wrong? Everyone says I’m such a good Mom? Why haven’t I created a home they want to bring their friends into? Is it only because we don’t have a TV? How can that be? You mean if we got a TV, they’d bring their friends here? Are Ari and I that embarrassing?

How come I’m always made to feel like I’m asking the impossible? When I ask them to come home it’s because I’m trying to create responsibility, structure and limits.
I’m worried about my kids, and I don’t know if I even have to be. I look around and I see my friends with seemingly healthy, well-adjusted kids one day and the next, they’re acting out, violent, rebellious. That scares me.

Am I connecting properly? Am I listening enough?

It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s just complaining.

They’re flying the coup and I’m not dealing with it well at all!

I’m all over the place with this.

And I’m losing sleep over it too. I’m afraid to sleep because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring me.

I don’t want my kids to leave me. I want them to need me forever. I want them to not be able to function without me. I want them to be babies and helpless.

It was oh so easier then…

I hope they’ll be OK.

G-d help us! and me, too!