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Life these days feels like a see saw. It is up and down with no real predictor of success, other than the number of consecutive sleep hours from the previous night. Yesterday- awful. Awful like crocodile tears, hopelessness, anguish. I questioned whether it might be a touch of post-partum depression. A wonderful trifecta of a listening husband, some solid time in prayer, and a late afternoon call with a friend who did suffer with it and I felt a little more hopeful. I went to bed feeling sad that I was not the mom I want to be but felt just enough resolve to start again fresh today. And today is better. The weather is gorgeous and a friend convinced me to haul those two babes out of the house for lunch on a patio so I could feel the sunshine. Vitamin D all around. I walked around in the sunshine holding my sweet boy while MK ran with her best friend. I kissed that perfect little head and smiled, remembering my high school yearbook quote. "The sun'll come out tomorrow." During some pretty hard days in high school and college, I tried to remember that. It is so, so true. The sun does come out, in every way. It just takes a little faith and good people around me to remind me.  |
| Good friends make the sun come out a little faster! |
I am learning a lot these days about sacrificial love. Fr. Silloway, an Atlanta priest I knew from our Catholic Center days at UGA, has said that if you are not sacrificing, it probably isn't real love. On days when I lament the hours of "me time" and the ability to just get in the car and go, I remember these words. Yes, there is a lot of sacrifice. My book pile is getting high. The blog gets neglected. Thank you notes go unwritten and hair most certainly goes unwashed. But there is also an indescribable amount of love. The sacrificing part just reminds me that it is authentic and right and just as God intended it.
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| My kind of sacrificing. |
People who have small children and dogs and clean houses baffle me. HOW does one do that?? You are never going to walk in my house with a white glove and leave without some stains on that glove, but even I would prefer a wee bit more order and cleanliness. Mr. "not happy unless physically touching my person" is not helping. Nor is his hatred of most slings/carriers. He knows I'm trying to cheat him of his right to be skin to skin and doesn't stand for it. Thankfully, we had about 35 minutes of success with outward facing action yesterday. I'm pretty sure he's too young to be outward facing (if you even believe babies should look outward. Our friends at Ergo would say no.) but I simply kept a hand on his little head most of the time and we didn't have any major wobbles. Good news: it was just enough time to sweep and throw a load of laundry in. Bad news: laundry is still in the dryer and it yielded enough time to sweep, not to sweep UP the piles. Baby steps people.
I am still trying to find the balance of getting out, being around people, seeing the sunshine, and not killing myself in the process. We are working on two extremes lately with either too much time out or too much time in. One physically exhausts me. The other mentally exhausts me. I've got to find a happy medium. If Mary Kate could stop running away from me in parking lots and Thomas could nurse without gagging, choking, thrashing the nursing cover from side to side, outings would be much easier. Also if they could both carry their own diaper bags and buckle themselves into carseats.
Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Thomas has good nights and bad. I have been counting down the days until the blessed 8 week mark when so many, including Mary Kate, achieved a full night's sleep. Thomas heard me singing his praises all too often and decided to regress. A lot. Moms on Call says they won't starve and let'em cry. La Leche says my kid will be in therapy if he doesn't sleep in my bed and nurse all night. A friend's blog said she got her 6 week old nursing every 4 (?!) hours and sleeping until 5:30 am. I haven't figured out what works for us yet and am reminded that parenting is one big, fat game of trial and error. I know that much of the bad days (see numero uno) have to do with pure exhaustion. 8 weeks of very little sleep plus the months of bad 3rd trimester sleep equal a cumulative level of exhaustion that people have used in warfare. I just miss sleep. That's all.
Last night I went to a work appointment and while I was gone, Ross and Mary Kate apparently played a mean game of hide and seek. Their game was real, unlike my version where I hide in the bathroom to make a call or have 24 seconds of peace. As he told the story of their before bed play time, I got a little sad. The day had been brutal, no doubt. But I was struck by how little I "play" with my girl. I take her places to play. I bring friends over for her to play with. But when we're home, I feed Thomas or change diapers or try to do a few small chores all while suggesting to her things she could do. Rarely these days have I just played with her. We aren't making sacrifices for me to stay at home just for me to bring out a new puzzle or game for her to play with alone. She is in church nursery twice a week and mops childcare once a week so surely I can sit down 2 days a week, even as the less fun parent, and just play. It'd probably be good for all of us.
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Reading through all of your takes I just felt the need to say, "Don't be so hard on yourself. You are where God wants you to be with whom he wants you to learn and grow closer to Him with. Your children may not have a mom on the floor playing with clean hair, but they have the mom who was open to God's love in another child for their family and God placed them in your care knowingly."
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