"I Feel Your Pain..."

The last few nights have been really difficult. Who am I kidding, the last few MONTHS have been difficult. But the boys are being particularly challenging right now - Sam won't nap, and Will won't go to sleep at night. I know they're both wired/stressed out/sad/angry/etc, but I feel like I still need to enforce the rules or they're going to end up walking all over me for the next 18+ years.

In the middle of all of this, Josh is completely out of touch. I know he's with one of his women. He's reached out ONCE in the last 48 hours, and this is how the interaction went:

J: "How is everything?"
Me: "Well, it's tough. Will had a great day, but Sam didn't nap and is being difficult. Hopefully we'll have an early bedtime."
J: "Well, tomorrow I'll be feeling your pain."
Me:"Heh. Yeah."

What I wanted to say was:

No, you won't. You see the boys about 16 hours per week right now. There are 168 hours in a week. That means you see them 9.5% of the week. But let's break that down even further....

You put them to bed 2-3 times per week. I put them to bed 5-7 times per week, in large part because I don't think you can handle it. And I'm right. And how many times per week do you handle the morning routine? None. Not one. Because you aren't sober enough to wake up in time to help. In fact, based on my research, you rarely wake up before 10 a.m. I feel blessed and lucky if I get to sleep until 7, which almost never happens.

Oh, and Josh, how many times per night do the boys wake up? That's right, you don't know, because you haven't spent the night in charge of them since early May (and let's be honest, before then you never got up anyway). Due to your departure, Will wakes up an average of once per night, and Sam usually wakes up twice. This means I have not slept more than four hours in a row since May. And when they do wake up, they are usually screaming for you, because they know you are gone. I can soothe them, but it takes a while.

When was the last time you did their laundry? While I appreciate your trying to make their lunches twice a week, I generally have to fix some piece of it (you forgot the drink, or you didn't label things properly). And let's not even start about the state of the house when you leave. It's ridiculous. But don't worry - I'll clean it up. Sometime before I go to work for 8+ hours and then take care of your children.

So no, you won't feel my pain tomorrow. The pain you feel is that of someone who doesn't really want to be a father. It's an inconvenience to have to deal with your children for 16 hours/week. And if you do feel pain, I'm sure you'll numb it with drugs before it hurts too much. I don't have that luxury - I'm still in charge of our children.

Asshole.