Friday, April 30, 2010

Rope. End.

I love my kid.  Most of the time.

However, you wouldn't know it today when I yelled at her (maybe more like raised my voice) on my second attempt to get her down for a nap.

And you know what she did?  She kissed me.  Okay, for her it is more like coming at me with her little cute mouth, probably hoping I'll feed her some sort of yummy snack that I have hidden in my pocket because big people always have delicious solid food snackies with them, but it looked like she was coming in for a kiss and so that is what I did.

And then I asked for forgiveness from whom or whatever gave me such a good kid that when something goes wrong I don't know what to do so I act like a damn idiot.

That felt awful

Was out walking around my neighborhood yesterday (literally around - it is a loop and I know that if I do five loops it equals two miles).  Anyway, out walking, had the baby and the dog with me.

Loop one: walked past neighbor leaning on his car, calling for his son to hurry up and come outside.

Loop two: neighbor and son are in the cul de sac, tossing a football back and forth, looks to me like they know what they are doing.  My dog tries to pull me, the stroller with the baby and himself over to investigate and possibly take the football and run off.

Loop three: neighbor asks me if I am new to the neighborhood.  No, I have been here three years.  Really, says he, wow.  I don't know what to say to that so I reiterate the three years bit.  Plus, I walk around the loop A LOT so it's on him for not seeing me before.  Where do you live, he asks.  I point, he asks if we have the yellow Beetle, I say yes.  He asks what I do.

I say that I left my job to stay home with my baby ohbutIalsoamacommunicationsconsultantfromhome.  Before I can rush that mouthful out, oh, says he, and asks what my husband does. 

I head off on loop four, alternating between mentally hitting myself in the head for saying that I stay home with my kid and drowning myself in guilt for feeling like that was totally lame.

But he was the one who acted all dismissive when I said that, so he shouldn't have made me feel badly.

But I am the one who felt badly.  

So again I ask you, why do we hate mamas?  

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The new reality

Turns out, I've been sleep deprived for going on nine months now.  I've grown accustomed to the familiar feeling of choosing to only pay attention to six rather than nine things at once because that's all my gasping brain can handle, to the constant race I am in to drink enough water to stay one step ahead of the ever-looming exhaustion headache that has taken up residence in the back of my brain.

But I guess it's not supposed to be like this.  Oh, it is for new parents, don't doubt that, but for the general population - no.

I went to sleep much too late last night (a stupid recent trend, I'll admit) and was awoken a glorious 90 minutes later to the sound of a crying baby.  Now this baby, she never cries at night.  When she usually wakes up after eight hours of sleeping and is hungry, she starts to stir and make grunty noises.  I get up and get into her room before things escalate to the point of actual wakefulness or sadness.  I do this every night, on my own, while hubs slumbers, peacefully undisturbed.

So when she cried last night, I knew it was his time to get up.  He didn't, not right away, anyway.  Anyway, that's a story for another post.

When the kiddo is back down and getting dozey, I find that I have been awake for two hours and can't fall back asleep.  Pre-baby, this would really freak me out.  Post-baby, this has happened more than I care to admit.

When hubs' alarm went off three hours later, I dutifully climbed out of bed, got dressed and combed my hair.

The kid woke up not long after, which is to say WHY IS SHE NOT TAKING A NAP RIGHT NOW?

I am hoping that by continuing to leave her in her room she will magically drift off to sleep.  I am also hoping that someone else will show up to take care of this.