Before I start, I am going to say of course I love and am grateful for my children and my husband. I know the responsibility I took on becoming a wife and a mother. I don't resent my place in either of those roles.

I'm also going to add that my husband has had things planned with his friends and family without discussing anything with me every weekend for about 6 weeks and left me completely on my own with the kids about 90% of that time. Family events would turn into me chasing the kids around while he socialized. I feel like I always get placed second when it comes to friends, hanging out, doing anything other than going to work and caring for my children. I have a grandmother who will take them sometimes one day a week for a couple hours but honestly that isn't enough time to do anything except straighten the house because it always butts up to right before work or right after work. Just the way it works out. And you ladies know how it is. When you get an hour or two kid-free, first thing you do is clean because we NEVER get time to do that without it being instantly destroyed. Plus, if we don't do it or delegate, who will?

Now my husband works really weird hours and I feel like if he can go spend SOME time doing things he likes, it's important he does that. I also don't want his friends to be upset with him thinking he can never do anything or like I'm telling him he can't go.

This weekend, we got invited to go out drinking. I know the friend's girlfriend, we get along, but have only seen each other in person once. I'll front this by saying I do not enjoy going out to drink socially and don't like going out "just to drink", just never been my thing. I asked what time and he said, "Idk, late." This meant that we would definitely be out past the kids' bedtime. At this time we're not worried about the money it's just a fact that we can't afford a babysitter PLUS date night, so either neither of us went or he went by himself. I told him the day before yesterday (before he planned the thing with his friends) that I had dinner planned for tonight and I wrongly assumed he realized that meant for ALL of us to have dinner together, but now he's gone to hang out and I'm here with the kids aggravated and cranky because even though he isn't getting together with the friends until 7:30, he decided to leave 3 hours early to go hand-wash his car which was never part of the discussion to begin with. This little situation has just put a cherry on top of my stress cake.

It's been an extremely challenging week with my two kids, my daughter is in a "whine and cry over everything 24/7" phase and my son just pushes her to her limit. They're almost 2 and almost 3. It's toddler nature, not mad about that. Just generally stressed and anxiety is through the roof because of the constant whining. I'm working 5 days a week, going to school full time, trying to get everything situated for graduation and start my credentialing, take care of finances, and make sure the kids and my husband get what they need from me even if it means getting up in the middle of the night to make my husband some food so he can eat when he comes home (I've been trying really hard to make sure I'm putting effort into those little things so he sees that I care about him too). I'm overwhelmed and I don't know how to carve out time for me to feel like I actually get the mental breaks that I need. Meditating doesn't work for me, I was working out and walking/running but now I have bursitis in my knee which seriously put a wrench in that, and I feel like I'm losing myself again. The friends I thought I had are nowhere to be found and I'm sitting here feeling guilty for not checking in on them every day. Where and who am I in this???