I think I may have accidentally begun practicing polygamy when I wasn't paying attention. There's no way a sigle husband could find this many unique ways to jab at my brain, so there must be a team of them, poking at me in shifts.

There's nothing specifically BAD he's been doing... which is all the more frustrating, because I can't point at something and say, "THERE, that, stop doing that." It's just a general noodginess and petulant attitude that will, I'm sure, drive me droolingly insane before the end of the weekend.

I even think that I know where it's coming from. I have to apply for an internship so that I can finish my doctorate so that I can pay off my student loans, which is an anxiety-inducing process all by itself - each application is about 30 pages long, I'll be applying to about 15 places, and about 10% of all applicants don't get a placement at all. And then if you add in the fact that I don't entirely WANT to go back to work full-time, and you get an anxious, ambivalent, cranky mama. I like being home with the kids, and if I could afford it I would do it for several more years. But I can't, so I won't - but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Though I do have to keep reminding myself that I'm applying now but the placement won't start until next summer. By then, I may very well be ready to get out of the house several days a week and act like a grown-up. Or, at least, to get out of the house.

But anyway, we've spent the weekend in that lovely atmosphere of edginess and defensiveness that comes from the phenomenon that if Mom has a bad day, EVERYBODY has a bad day. I would love to have a day where I could sulk and mutter to myself and have everyone else sort of benignly ignore me and get on with their days, but that's apparently not an option.

So, I'll just keep dragging everyone down with me, and waiting for the next snotty argument to pop up. I hate being grown-up enough to recognize my own role in the crankiness, but adolescent enough not to bother fixing it. I don't *wanna* be responsible for fixing it.

Pfbllghtt.