Being a stay-at-home-mom to a 2 1/2 year old boy and his 5 month old sister takes its toll sometimes. Especially since I am an "attachment parenting"-parent and breastfeeding both kiddos. So I drew myself a deep, hot bubblebath and had a glass of wine Hubby so thoughtfully brought me to unwind (thus the title of this blog).
Let me give some context:
Last night Hubby was on call (he's a doctor currently studying to become a radiologist) and usually I am super-mom on a post-call day, since I know that Hubby will be extra tired and in need of some pampering. But not today. Last night I struggled to get the kids to bed and in turn had a very interrupted night's sleep with a baby nursing every 2 hours and a toddler who kicks me in his sleep.
So today I was a little bruised myself. But I was still strong for my over-tired Hubby. Oh, and did I mention that we're moving in four days? Yeah, so I'm packing in between everything as well (or trying to and failing miserably...).
When Hubby took his nap things all went south... fast. Baby was supposed to fall asleep soon after Hubby, but I was bouncing and swaying for half an hour before her eyes finally closed. All the while my son was playing sweetly on his own outside. But of course, as soon as Baby's eyes closed, he came thrashing inside with his toy car. He responded well when I asked him to be quiet and was even eager to park his car in the garage. And then came the melt-down. The garage door was locked. Unbeknownst to me, Hubby had locked it just before taking his nap.
Now, with a crying baby in one hand and a screaming toddler I had to unlock the door with one hand to let the boy in so he can park his car a choose a quieter toy. After fumbling the boy could get in and was instantly quiet, but I had missed the window for Baby's nap. This meant that she won't dink (stubborn little girl), which meant that she'd stay awake and hungry until toddler dinner time, go to bed early which in turn meant that she would either wake at some point during the night, refuse to go to sleep for and hour and a half or wake up at 4:30 or 5:00. Just the prospects of this made me want to cry.
Now I'm bouncing on the ball again, desperately trying to avoid the horrible prospects for the night to come. But now my son has also become whiny. He wants attention and he was going to make sure he gets it. Half an hour of this later I am frustrated beyond words and carelessly plops Baby down on her play mat, ignore Toddler and rush out of the room. I wanted to break something, anything, just to get this frustration out of me. A single sound out of Baby or a word from Toddler would push me over the edge. Yes, smash a glass! But then I'll have to clean up and probably cut my bare feet in the process, so that wasn't an option. Instead I made scrambled eggs for toddler's dinner, park him in the high chair and raid the pantry for some fudge. I bounce Baby again, me on the verge of tears, taking tiny bites out of the only block of fudge in the house.
Finally Hubby wakes up and Baby falls asleep. This is the time that I draw a bath and get away.
I lay there in the bubbles, eyes closed and thought that this was the only me-time I've had in the past... how many months? I shave my legs for the first time in a month (gross, I know, but there just wasn't any time!), I file my grandma cracked heels and I start to feel more like a human and less like a rabid werewolf. I realised that I need more me-time just to collect myself and avoid crazy emotional outbursts like these. Writing it down, it doesn't even sound so bad, but in the moment it was the worst day (okay, hour, but it felt like a day!) and I felt trapped and alone.
That's also the time I decided I had to write these feelings down, but it's too much for a Facebook post and I don't have a blog. And that's why there is a blog now. And why it's a standard template without a fancy header or witty anything. I just needed to get this out, like therapy.
Maybe there are other moms who occasionally feel this way and they won't feel so alone if they read this. Or maybe no one in the world will read it, but who cares. This is for me, my therapy. And now I feel better. Dead tired, but better. Let's hope the night pans out better than I thought...
