Has every single moment been awful, have I been unable to see the beauty and wonderment and joy in my kids, my life, my hobbies? NO, of course not.
In fact, it's been quite a test that my mom being so close is indeed SO important. She's rescued me many times in the little household falling apart drama that is my attempt at being a stay at home mom.
You know, in my defense I always wanted to be a stay at home mom... not a homeMAKER... i.e. the dishes never really did fit in with my plans. And hey, admit it, NONE of you thought I was going to do all that well with the food aspect of wivery and mommery.
Just think if I'd ended up single all my life how I would have let my food preferences reign. It would have been scary. I would have been on Oprah... with no help afterwards of course - just sent on home to eat my dry cheerios in peace.
Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent.
Point being I'm unhappy... but not without hope. This is right around the time - 10 months after birth - that I got a handle on things when it was Abby crawling around - getting ready to walk. My mom had organized THAT house and I'd finally really been empowered that everything did actually have a place and Abby could actually pick up her toys before bedtime as long as I started BEFORE bedtime.
My biggest problem I think is that I have a charming husband. I haven't thought of him as charming per se in a while - he's Steve - great and cool and funny sure. But yesterday when I was really really annoyed with everyone and everything - so much so that I was just going to HAVE to make a change- -he came home and charmed me right out of my bad mood.
Stinker.
Because then nothing changed (I mean, it was a nice family night and all) but nothing changed and I just got just as annoyed and frustrated when the day started again this morning... or should I say the night never ended.
My dearest boy Jack woke up every two hours. Not really that awful considering what it could have been - but I got so FRUSTRATED that I couldn't sleep in the interim and literally went to sleep when I passed Jack off to Steve at 6am. I then got to sleep until 7 people... I shouldn't be affected at all! What am I thinking?
OH that's right, I'm thinking I have a HEADACHE. And I have to work at the school tomorrow... and I'm still just plain CRANKY thats what I'm thinking.
Some funny things to take the edge off?
Right at the moment Jack is sitting at my feet, under the table, silent (he's forgotten that he's in a bad mood) and is staring up at me like a lap dog.
The first thing Jack does when let loose in any house is go looking for the bathroom to take a pleasure swim in the toilet - he has figured out that MOST houses are not so inconsiderate as his own in leaving the seat and the cover down to block his most serious attempt to splash in toilet water.
Another Jack thing - our tv has a blue light that if you wave your hand over it - it turns off or on. Jack has learned this. But doesn't connect what it does. He just knows it does something and that he gets hollered at when he does it. So yesterday he's up there real close watching Darby (his girlfriend) "think, think, think" when he turns off the tv. He then looks back at me in total dismay. I turn it back on, give him a stern lecture, and he does it again - this time he thinks it's ME punishing him. He is ANGRY now. Not my fault, I explain, but he doesn't seem to believe me.
Abby had a little painful bottom episode last week (try huge in the drama and screaming and panicking way) and we missed church. I didn't think it would be cool if she started screaming in the middle of Sunday School. So Steve and she run into her Sunday School teacher at Starbucks and honest Abby explains simply, "I wasn't at church school last week because I had a problem with my bottom."
If you ask Abby "what do you want to be when you grow up" you just stress her out (momma's little girl or what?) so she will usually respond to me, "I want to stay with you forever"... it's pretty cute.
She's also pretty honest when it comes to hygene - i.e. if my breath stinks. She cringed away from me tonight when I gave her a kiss nigh-nigh and I said, "whoops, do I stink?" and she put her face right up to mine and said, "No mama, you don't stink. you smell quite nice actually."
Oh, and another note on Jack. I tried to vacuum the rug downstairs yesterday - knew it might be difficult as the loud jet propelled vacuum I have downstairs will certainly startle and frighten my ten month old baby. Yeah, it was difficult all right. Because Jack kept trying to climb the vacuum from the front. He chased me around the rub trying to intercept the vacuum. I did not want to run over him. I don't know why... it just didn't seem right.... so I had to do this weird two step.
Oh joy, it's almost 1am and Jack is still sitting wide awake freeing the diapers from their drawer. He is cute. Yes. I know. I'll concentrate on that.
5 comments:
Hang in there, dear.
It's like we're living in parallel universes, but while in the same universe. Rachel and Abby are probably very similar in some ways. Rachel can also be brutally honest about things like stinky breath - I, of course, am sure to let her know that her breath also does not smell like roses first thing in the morning. So neither of us takes offense and just figures we'd better brush our teeth. And Rachel is also with the serial questioning. Sometimes I just don't have good answers for her. I think it's mostly because my brain is too exhausted to function correctly.
I am desperate, DESPERATE, I tell you, for more than 2 hours of sleep at one time. Ben has also stepped up in teething pain, as well as gassiness, with the result that he wakes up many times throughout the night. He ends up next to me for at least part of the night, where he keeps wanting to latch on and eat, all the while squirming, arching his back and kicking me. He still sleeps in his swing because that's where he slept best at the beginning and he got used to it, plus we still don't have our nursery available to us and no place else to put the crib (and we don't want to move it out for fear that we'll NEVER get our room back). I suspect if he had the crib and more room to move around and stretch out and roll over, he might adjust fairly quickly to sleeping there. He mostly just protests sleeping in general, so I think he'd fight it no matter where he is.
I can see Ben doing the kinds of things you describe Jack doing. I think it would be so interesting if we had a chance to get them all together and let them play. I suspect we'd see a lot of similar behaviors between our girls and boys.
I like living in Washington and it's been so much better for our family (except for the extended roommate situation), but I do miss our friends there, like you.
I just had a FULL NIGHT's sleep. My empathy's with you Lori.
Well, you've been dealing with it even longer than I have. I'm glad you had such a good night of sleep! Hopefully you've gotten some other full nights of sleep in there.
Ben's been doing a little better the last two nights. I started to give him gas relief drops with nearly every feeding, including just before bed, and he's not being as fitful and fussy at night. And when I've had him in bed with me, he hasn't been kicking me. So I think I hit on something with the drops.
I'm still waking up several times at night, but I can function better if it's not a constant state of being woken up. I actually had dreams last night. Woo!
oh no, let me clarify - I slept the full night because the kids were with my mom! :)
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