When Does Sleep Return?

A couple of months ago, we finally started sleeping around here. Levi started sleeping through the night around the end of his 10th month. It was bliss.

Then came July 4. Our neighbors shoot off firewords for WEEKS. Caleb has reached the age where he realizes that things/noises/figments of his imagination are scary. So, he had a hard time sleeping for several weeks, and one of us slept in his room quite a lot. He finally did recover from that, and we all started sleeping again.

Then came our trip to New Mexico. I'm not really sure what set Caleb off, but he refused to go to sleep unless one of us was in the room with him. He's been going to sleep on his own since he was just a little baby, so I'm not sure why he's having trouble all of a sudden. He can't really tell us what's wrong, either. Just WAILING and BANGING if you leave him in his room alone. My genius husband came up with idea to set a timer and tell him we'd be back when the timer went off to sing him another song. It works pretty well at naptime (yesterday I only had to come back once), but not so well at night. But, it now is only taking us an hour and a half to get him to sleep instead of 3-4, so I guess that's progress.

Levi was up before 6am this morning, and his mommy went to bed at 1am after trying to finish defensive driving online (unsuccessfully). Then I heard my bedside alarm going off in CALEB'S room where it was left from the night before when I slept in there. Apparently he turned it on sometime yesterday. So, 10 minutes after I put Levi back to bed, Caleb was awake (at 6:15) telling me he was hungry.

Ok, that's all I can get to because Levi is sitting by the computer with a diaper that smells so bad I can hardly breathe. *sigh* The joys of parenting.

It's a Daily Struggle

Life is pretty hard right now. When Justin was in Singapore last, I realized that I was suffering from postpartum depression and needed to get some help, which is what I've done and am continuing to do. I don't think anyone was surprised by this news, especially my mother and sister who both had been thinking I had PPD but didn't know how to tell me. It's hard to tell someone you think they are suffering from depression. I really had been watching myself for the signs because, as my counselor says, I'm a pretty self-aware person, but I really thought I was just sleep-deprived. "If I could just get some sleep, everything would be better," I kept telling myself. (I am sleep-deprived, but it's much more than that!)

But when I really began to look at my life over the past few months, I began to realize that I had emotionally checked out a lot of the time and become pretty irritable the rest of the time. I was (and still am) having a hard time concentrating on things and getting my brain to focus. Taking the boys anywhere seemed like a monumental task. And Caleb started getting very irritable and angry with me...mirroring his mother's behavior back to her!

So, in the interest of honesty and in order to preserve these memories, good, bad, or indifferent, I'm sharing this with all of you. That's why I haven't been around much lately. I've had to take a step back. Most of the time I don't have the energy or care to be at the computer. And I've had to stop reading a lot of the blogs I used to read because I have a severe case of "I don't measure up to other people's expectations" syndrome. I've had to take a hard look at myself and what I expect. My expectations for myself have been completely out-of-whack.

I kept beating myself up for not doing what I expected I should be able to do. "Look at so-and-so...she's homeschooling 10 kids and I can't even get all three of us dressed on most days. What's wrong with me?" These are the kinds of thoughts that have been rampant in my head in the past months. Not very helpful!

I'm working with my doctor, and I hope the roller coaster of emotions will slow down soon. It's already gone from a huge, dipping roller coaster to a more smooth one. There are still good days and bad days and bad weeks, but I haven't cried all day in three weeks, so that's definitely an improvement!

For now, I'm continuing to see a counselor to work on my expectations and coping skills for the things that are putting the most stress on me right now.

It's getting better. But every single day is a struggle to do the things I don't feel like doing. Some days I succeed. And some days I don't. But that's okay.

I'm getting help. And I desperately need it.

When the Daddy's Gone

...everything seems to unravel. Justin's in Singapore again. Caleb woke up Saturday night throwing up. Twice. Changing sheets and clothes (mine and his) more than once. At least one of the boys was up about every hour last night (at 3:30, Caleb informed me that he wanted to get up. I reminded him it was the middle of the night and put him back to bed). This mommy is teetering on the edge of an exhaustion meltdown. I need some rest soon.

I wonder when I'll post about things other than not getting any sleep?

(Levi goes in for his 4-month check-up tomorrow and I suspect he'll be off the charts!)

We're Miserable

Caleb has a bad cold that turned into double eye infections and has had a fever of 101+ for four days now.

I have an upper respiratory infection and my throat hurts so bad I can hardly talk, eat, and/or drink anything. (And I'm not convinced I don't have strep...they didn't test for that when I went on Saturday morning.)

Levi is spitting up or throwing up multiple times a day and not just after a feeding. He's running a low-grade temperature, and I think he may have some sinus drainage that is making him gag and throw up.

Thankfully, we had company this weekend who were a huge help with the kids and keeping us all sane.

They're gone now, and Justin has to work tomorrow.

I just want to lay in bed all day and rest. But I'm the mommy, and I have two kids to take care of.

Say a little prayer for us, please.

Can I get Starbucks piped into my veins?

I'm so tired.

Levi apparently has his days and nights mixed up. And he thinks he needs to eat every 1-2 hours around the clock. He's had some reflux issues, which prevents me from completely filling him up on milk to make him last longer. Unless I want that milk all over me.

And he wants to be held. All.The.Time. I definitely wanted a cuddly baby, and I got what I asked for! ;-) Thank goodness for baby slings!! Levi LOVES the sling.

Any ideas for straightening out his days and nights? Ideas that don't involve letting him cry for hours on end because I can't do that to a 2-week-old. And my nerves can't handle it.

Now you know why I haven't been posting. I'm either feeding a baby or trying to get Caleb to stop touching his brothers eyes, stop standing on the coffee table, or I'm trying to chase him down and wrestle him to the ground to change his diaper.

Justin's mom left today, so now I'm officially alone with both kids by myself. Thankfully Caleb still takes a good, long afternoon nap.

Gotta run. Maybe I can sneak in a nap on the couch before Levi thinks he's starving to death once again.

Breathe, breathe, breathe

Like a good mother of a first child, I have spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Caleb's baby book is up-to-date, complete with pictures, progress sheets from the doctor, and lots of handwritten milestones and anecdotes. Just the other day I recorded his last two teeth that broke through and updated a few other things. I gave myself a little pat on the back for being so on top of things and imagined the day when I would pass that book on to Caleb to look back on when he has his own children, as my mom and Justin's mom did for us.

Caleb walks in the room a few minutes ago saying, "happened, mommy?" holding the "4 Month Check-up" sheet that had been taped into his baby book.

I scurried to the living room where I had left the baby book safely tucked into the coffee table cubby hole to find this:


*sigh*

Thankfully, he didn't rip apart the actual pages of the book or remove any photos. I've learned that if Caleb says, "happened?" he has broken something and can't for the life of him figure out why it now won't work.

After that pat on the back, I should have put that book in a very special place where little toddler hands can't reach. Lesson learned.

A Royal Priesthood

Much-needed inspiration and motivation for today's mothering tasks...

“But you are… a royal priesthood…that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9-10)

Ann writes today at Christian Women Online:

"So a mother consciously chooses to live out her priesthood as a believer, so that her children might be taught ‘divine things.’ As the Old Testament priest’s days carefully stepped to the beat of His expressed laws, so the New Testament everyday priest thoughtfully orders her days to the divine rhythms of Father’s heart. While the Old Testament High Priest wore the apron-like ephod, the New Testament ministering mother wears apron and holy habits. Holy habits of communing with God, reading and memorizing His Word, prayer, fasting, service, worship. Holy habits of putting on the garment of Christ (Gal 3:27 NEB).

The domestic priest cannot forcibly dress her children in holy habits, for these are not outward mantles of routines and checklists, but the interior attire of the heart. One can only clothe one’s own soul. What is a mother to do? She can faithfully adorn herself with her own ardor for Christ, her own daily, holy habits stirring the desires of her children, all the while thoughtfully laying out threads for young souls to take up in their own life’s tapestry. She prays and fasts and sings hymns and serves and loves and meditates on Scripture before her children. Then she creates space, stillness and opportunity for her children to also enter in. She lives so that each child feeds not on her devotionals, prayers or worship, but from his or her own. She kneels beside her child and helps him gather his own spiritual food with his own hands, rather than simply eating from hers."

May my own daily, holy habits stir the desires of my children to know and love Him.

Read the full article here.

Busy

Things around here are busy, as you can tell from the lack of posting lately. Caleb's suffering from a little virus. I had to take him and Justin to the doctor on Saturday morning (Justin also has been suffering from a weird virus that attacked the muscles in his arms and made them really weak. He's much better and getting stronger every day). Mommy finally gets to feeling better and everyone else gets sick!

Justin and I have a dinner to go to tomorrow night at his work for employees and spouses. No kids. So, I have to find someone to watch Caleb for a few hours. These are the times I wish we had family close because I know my mom and Justin's mom would jump at the chance for us to drop Caleb off for a few hours. *sigh* Most of our friends have more than one child at this point, so it gets trickier to find someone who is not busy with their own family life when I need a babysitter. My favorite babysitter is getting married next month and moving to Arkansas, so she's a little busy with all that.

GiBee commented on my last post that I should be pregnant more often because it "agrees with me." I just had someone at church tell me that on Sunday night. And during my last pregnancy more than one person said it, too. I agree...I look better pregnant than I do not pregnant because pregnancy is the only time I can't seem to gain any weight! My face is thin, and I love it! :-) I feel that same way about being pregnant more often and would have a bunch of kids (my husband and my family are cringing right now because they know how many kids I've said I wanted!), except that I'm not sure I could be as sick as I've been with this one and take care of more than one child. At my last appointment, my doctor said she didn't know how I'd been taking care of a little one feeling like I have been. I've had lots of help; that's the only way!

Caleb and I just started a "mommy and me" swim class last week. It's good for us to get out of the house, and for me to get a little exercise in the process. He HATED it. He pretty much screamed his head off the entire time. Probably because he was getting sick and his mommy didn't know it yet. They sing fun songs and play with toys in the water, so I'm hoping he warms up to it this week. It's fun for us to do something like this together because pretty soon we won't have that luxury when mommy is nursing a newborn.

I'm also helping with our church's VBS next week. I'm doing a little enrichment booth on prayer that the kids will spend about 8 minutes in (there are about 15 booths that they will visit in between the lessons and crafts). If y'all have any bright ideas on how to talk to kids entering Kindergarten through 6th grade about prayer, send them my way. I taught high school and don't yet have kids in elementary school, so I'm not really sure how to go about it. (They will be studying about Jonah, Daniel, David & Goliath, Esther, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in their lessons, so I want to tie in a little of what they've already learned or will by the end of the week.)

A Must-Read!

Katherine at Raising Five has a great post today for moms who are dealing with the adjustment of adding another child to the mix! I'll be there in a few months and I know I'll need to remember her words!

Here's a sample of her wise advice: "If some things have to be put on the back burner for a while, they will eventually work their way to the front. You don't have to solve everything right here, right now. Let people help you, even if their "help" seems harder than doing it yourself. Take some naps. Deal with the big siblings as best you can, but don't stress. They're not leaving home any time soon. Some acting up is expected with a new baby around, so don't take it as a personal affront to your parenting ability."

Go over and see what other great things she has to say!