Somedays I wonder why I became a mother.

This is one of them. I love them dearly I really honestly do but a lot of the time I question my ability to parent them effectively (or at all). Take today for example I had lost my rag with them before 9am, that means I was up for 1 paltry hour before I was cross. Phoebe wouldn't get dressed and was running around in her socks and Clara did an escapa-poo. Phoebe deigned to get dressed as I said it was time for school (and in record time to). Then I had to face the shops with Clara who on a good day could be described as "strong willed" and on a day like today perhaps Mini-Mao would be a better description. She ran, screamed and jumped her way around the shops and I gave in and embraced my inner (ha!) fish wife, in public too.

I find it all SO frustrating, the mindless destruction of things and the injuries to me. I feel like I am a thing to them. Something to climb on, yank around, pull hair of, elbow, jump on etc, slave to their every whim. Nothing I do is right, there is always something for them to moan about. I do something they love it, then they whine for more and more. I feel like I am never enough. I am so sick of having the same conversation over and over and over by them. I do the housework and they muck it up again, with interest meaning we spend far more time than I would like living in what resembles a pig sty.

I feel like I need a week off from them to recover but I know it will never be enough. Is it so wrong to want to live in a nice house, with nice things that STAY nice and don't get covered in sticky finger prints or broken within 30 seconds of entering?