Introspection

The last few days have been a bit rough for me. I felt like we hit a great rhythm a while back but unfortunately this weekend it came crashing to a halt. It dawns on me that parenthood is full of these swings and I suppose it's natural that I am going to have a bunch of highs and lows in the early months of our children's lives. I was telling this to my neighbor a while back and she said "welcome to the next 20 years of your life". Ha.

It came crashing to a halt at 1:15am on Sunday morning when Garrett decided he was going to wake up. He was mighty angry and it was only 3 hours since I had put him down. Since about 5 weeks of age Garrett had started to wake up only once a night, somewhere in the 4am hour. Then for some reason last Thursday he started getting up at 3am, then the next night at 2:30am and then the unfortunate 1:15 the next night. WHY, o why, has he decided to regress like this?

Kevin was out of town on Monday and Tuesday of last week and I thought I handled everything just fine. I felt good about it all and felt like his first trip away was a success. Then Garrett got a cold, Delaney got "croup light" and I had to spend all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with both kiddos without a break. Delaney was MIGHTY challenging on Thursday and Friday. Stubborn, angry, defiant and mischievous. I told Kevin when he came home on Friday night that this weekend I needed a break. Especially from Delaney. A good chunk of time where I got to go away (or they went away) and be by myself. For whatever reason I didn't get this on Saturday because we were busy doing things like going to Delaney's school fund raiser, getting the Christmas tree and seeing Jean/Lara/Gabe in the Boulder Parade of Lights. So then Saturday morning rolls around, I'm going on a full week of hard core parenting work, three nights in a row of not getting a lot of sleep and I snapped a little bit.

There are a few things I learned this week, or at least reminded myself was the case.

First and foremost sleep is paramount. If I don't get it I get cranky. I don't function well on little to no sleep. I need to make sure I am getting my sleep somehow even if it means asking Kevin to take over one of the nighttime feedings.

Secondly that if I hear myself saying "I need a break" that I need to be better about forcing myself to get it, even if it means asking neighbors for help. Or hiring help. Because if I say that I need a break there is a really good chance I need it or I will find myself in the mood that I was on Sunday. Tired, angry, frustrated and with a very short fuse with my kids.

Third that it is hard to keep the house afloat with two young kids and most of the time I will not succeed to my standards. It turns out it's very challenging to keep a clean house, feed the kids healthy meals, feed the whole family healthy meals, exercise and feed the pets, buy Christmas gifts, decorate the house, pay bills, do laundry and get some exercise myself. I think most days and weeks I need to just keep lowering my expectations.

And probably one other thing that is pretty important. It's not letting myself feel badly about needing time away. I think about other moms who seem to function just fine without any breaks. But I am not one of them. I need regular time away from my kids in order to be a good mom and THAT'S OK. I think when I'm engaged and really present with my kids I'm a great mom. I'm good at it. But when I'm not engaged and I am craving time away I am NOT a good mom. And I just need to make sure I'm getting that time away so that when I'm there with my kids I'm at my best.

Today Delaney is at school and I am just with Garrett. It already feels better to have had a few hours to myself. Unfortunately Garrett woke up twice again last night and I REALLY hope he goes back to his once-a-night routine. I know he has it in him and he just needs to snap back into it. But I am feeling optimistic that this week will be much better.

I even talked to Kevin about me sneaking out to see a movie by myself some night this week. Now I just need to be better about actually DOING it and not feeling the slightest bit guilty about it.