Monday, June 2, 2008

No Rest For the Weary

One of the most difficult aspects of being a mom is that there is no break. If you are sick, if you are tired, if you are stressed....there is no break. I know that a few times since my son was born, I have gotten up in the morning and not felt good at all. All I wanted to do was crawl back into bed, hide under the covers, and recharge. But there is no longer that luxury.

Before baby, I used to work all the time; but I always knew how to pace myself, give myself that down time to recharge my physical battery and be able to keep going and doing. My biggest challenge these days is finding a way to recharge my battery, because with anything, if the physical battery breaks down, everything else breaks down.

Yesterday was a perfect example. I woke up on sunday morning and was not feeling great, as if I was coming down with something. My husband went off to work overtime at his job and my son had me up at 6:30 am ready to go. I dragged myself out of bed and had to get our two dogs fed, and get my son a bottle of milk, then try to get him to have some sort of breakfast, while he is running around the house, more interested in playing........I would have given anything to have gone back to bed and caught a couple more hours of sleep.

But instead I tried to participate in the morning and prayed he would be ready for a nap at around 10:30am. Unfortunately, because I wanted him to, he was not going to have a nap at 10:30, or at 11:00 as I struggled with him to lay down. So finally I got him and I dressed and headed out for the day......just in time for him to fall asleep in the car on the way to a street fair. (For 20 minutes)

So we are out and about, I am feeling better, being outside and out of the house...but he is still wearing me down!! Then we leave to come home, and I am hoping he will be ready for an afternoon nap....give me a good hour to lay down and just grab some rest. He is almost nodding off in the car, and I am playing with his feet trying to keep him awake......almost home, just a few more miles, almost there.....and I can put him down in his bed, and I can lay down.

I lift him out of his car seat, ease him into the house, my dogs are jumping around because they want to go out.....and boom, Zack is up and there is now no nap. I put him in his crib anyway, hoping he will try to fall asleep, while I take out the dogs and feed them.......I go back upstairs and he is jumping around ready to play.

Does he need me to calm him down, try to get him back in the slumber state he was in a short while ago? Because he really does need to nap (and so do I) normally he takes a 2 hour nap and so far he has only had 20 minutes. I pick him up and try to rock him.......but nothing works, the spell has been broken and he is now up for the duration.

I let him down off my lap and look at my watch. I take a deep breath and wonder how I am going to get through the next few hours before he may be ready for sleep. It was now 3:30 and I doubt he would go down before 6:30 pm (if I am really lucky). Plus, without his nap, am I going to have to endure melt downs and emotional difficulties?

We get through the next few hours with some struggles, I get through dinner, we get through bath time and I am beyond ready to have him go down for the night. At 7:00 we are struggling in his bedroom, he is way past exhausted (and so am I) so he doesn't want to go down, but after a little bit he konks out! I am beat up, totally spent, and not able to do one more thing......

But as I walk downstairs I see the living room with scattered toys all over the floor, and I grit my teeth as I put everything away. I go into the kitchen to get a glass of wine, I walk back upstairs to my bedroom, throw on my soft pajamas and crawl under the covers and try to lose myself in a good book.

Just to do it all over again tomorrow..........

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