4 kids, 4 and under. Exhausted by the constant redirecting that is necessary at this age. Also exhausted by the grind of trying to cook, clean, and do laundry while simultaneously keeping the kids out of trouble.
Feeling disappointed that I'm not enjoying my kids, in fact I just wish there were less of them, or that I had full-time help to deal with them.
Also run a farm. I don't need to work all day at it, but I need to check-in daily and delegate tasks and make sure things are on schedule, ideal 2-3 hours/day.
Edited to add $ info: Our average income is about $40,000 pesos/month. And our average expenses are $24,000 pesos/month (that includes preschool, but no baby-care).
The 3 oldest are in preschool/kindergarten, for which we pay $3500 pesos/month total. They attend from 8:30 to 1. It's pretty affordable and happens to be the best private school in the area. We plan on sending them to private for at least all of primary because we think that public school here is a shit show.
The youngest is only 18 months. My options for him are:
1. Pay someone $4000 pesos/month to watch him 8-2
2. Take him with me to work (what I've done up til now.) He's more of a toddler than a baby, which makes it more difficult because he walks and gets into things. It's doable, but really frustrating.
3. Pay someone only part time, to watch him 8:20 - 11. ($1600/month)
Other thoughts:
1. Pay someone on Saturday to watch all the kids for 6-8 hours $800/month. Kills two birds with one stone: I don't have to be with the kids all day Saturday, and I get one day with no kids to do whatever I need to do.
2. Just deal with my own kids, but get household help to help with cooking, cleaning, and laundry. ($4000/month).
3. Hire someone as after-school care for 3 hours ($2000/month). This one actually sounds pretty good. I could do housework (cooking cleaning and laundry while the big kids are at school and baby is no trouble in my baby-proofed house. Then when kids get home from school, I could do my out-of-house farm-work. Several birds gone with one relatively cheap stone).
Ok, now for the existential crisis part:
What I like most about the last option is that it maximizes the amount of time I'm not with my kids. Which makes me feel terrible for wanting that. They're my kids after all, and I had them! In my defense, by the time my youngest, and 4th, child was born, my oldest was only 3. And I love babies. They didn't get sucky for me until they turned 3. So I had them all before I knew what I was getting into. I loved the idea of a big family. But I didn't take into account that I'm an introvert and I love being alone. Babies make you feel alone. 3+ are nonstop chatterboxes and I just want everyone to be quiet and get away from me!
So I'm an introvert that doesn't like people, who now lives with 5 other people. And I feel terrible for wanting to be away from my sweet adorable children AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Face punch if you like, but there's nothing we can do about this now. We can only make it better going forward. So do I:
1. go ahead and maximize my time away from them
2. learn to like being with them better? retrain myself, reframe my perspective so that I enjoy being with my kids?
Is it possible that #2 will happen when I do #1?
What about all the times people say:
--they're only young once
--I miss those little hands and feet
--they grow so fast
--you'll wish they were little again
If I do #1 (maximize time away), will I regret it? Or is it possible that not everyone's going to love 3-5 year olds, and I should protect my sanity now, and enjoy an awesome relationship when they're a little older, like 7+?
Being a parent feels so momentous. You only get one set of kids, usually. I just don't want to fuck this up and then be old and kicking myself for not appreciating these days more.