I feel that this fog will lift.  I have been depressed for a long while, but I didn't realize it because my depression did not take the form of sadness and crying.  I'd felt angry, irritable, to the point that I was overreacting way too much to my children's mischief.  I thought that I was somehow morally deficient as a person.  That was on a good day.  On a bad day, I felt like I should never have been a mother in the first place.  I felt like an explosion waiting to happen.  It took all of my self control to not spew hateful venom at my children.  I felt ashamed.  A couple of mothers on a message board that I am on talked about how when they are depressed, they feel a great deal of rage.  Then something clicked.  That was me.  That was depression talking.  It's not that I hate my children and their antics.  That was the depression talking.  I talked to my husband, he's a psychiatrist and an internist.  He said that I just needed to try harder, my self esteem was low, he said, because I was not accomplishing much, but if I tried harder, I would feel better about myself.  I felt worse, deficient as a person and lazy.  To think that a few months ago I contemplated writing myself a prescription for some kind of antidepressant.  Or asking one of his friends to do it for me.  I felt the stigma of being depressed, of being angry.  Even though my friends and I talked about everything and anything, the subject of postpartum depression and the various ways that depression can manifest never came up.  Today I confessed to my husband that I am tired of feeling so irritable.  He said that it's because I am with my children 24/7 and I just need some time away.  I said to myself, fine, he does not understand, but as soon as our insurance kicks in I would see a doctor and get meds.  I talked to my friends on line and took 600 mg. of St. John's Wort, followed by some liquid cal/mag. 

I feel like I have some clarity for the first time in a long time.  I'm not a terrible person.  The depression was making me feel and react in a way that I would not have felt/reacted otherwise.  I saw a difference this evening when my oldest tracked mud onto our carpet.  It didn't have that effect on me.  I didn't see red or curse.  I just got a sponge and cleaned up the mud spots.  I don't know how to explain it, but for the first time in a long time, I felt God's grace and understood it.

My oldest son started school in December 2007.  He needed speech therapy and some help with his social skills, so finally after 5 months of evaluations, a meeting, and waiting, he was able to start school.  It's been great for him, but there was an unexpected side effect from school.  He was exposed to some things that I would have rather he not be.  On Fridays most weeks, as a special treat the teacher would show Disney movies.  Cars, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and some children t.v. like Dora.  I don't have a problem with Disney movies per se, it's all the marketing that bothers me.  Dora, Lightning McQueen, and Buzz Lightyear paraphernalia are all over the place.  I'd really prefer that my children not have a room decorated like a movie character.  Fads change so fast.  There's no way that I am going to change comforters every year based on who the movie character du jour is.  I don't like trendy stuff.  Typically when I take my children to Walmart, I steer clear of the toy section.  I hate dealing with the gimmes.  We don't buy a whole lot of toys for our children, just for their birthdays, typically we buy them a soccer ball or a bike or trucks or something that encourages them to be active.  Where we have lived for the past 7 years, there is a paved area for riding bikes, a quad where children draw hopscotch grids in brightly colored chalk, a concrete climbing toy, a sand box, and lots of grass and flowers.  I'm amazed by how much fun my children have with a bucket and sticks and shovels.  When they were younger, we would take nature walks and I'd point out the squirrels, the birds, the bugs, and the flowers to them.  Now they just want to ride their bikes and explore for themselves.

The other problematic thing that children are exposed to are preservatives.  It seems like there are always birthday parties where parents put together goody bags full of candy.  Every week my son would be learning a new letter and the teacher would have snacks on Wednesday, and on Thursdays and Fridays there would be some lunch.  D is for doughnuts and Dorritos.  B is for burgers at Burger King.  I is for ice cream.  I try to keep processed foods to a minimum, and sweets are typically cookies or cakes that I made from scratch.  I guess there's only so much that a parent can protect their children from.