I think maybe I have the swine flu?

I doubt it, but let’s just say that last night when I was half asleep and feverish and shaking with chills, the last thing I felt like doing was getting-up to feed Harris.  Thankfully, the fever went away pretty quickly, but I still didn’t enjoy the next four feedings of the night anymore than the first.  (To his credit, Clay had been trying to give him a bottle, but he just wasn’t taking it.)  Ahhh, motherhood.

How can I kill the spiders without poisoning my kids?

We have a spider problem.  Or rather, we’re about to.  Thanks to the lovely springtime, the outside of our house and our garage is covered in spiders and spiderwebs just like it was last year.  I don’t know what kind they are, and I don’t really want to know.  (I don’t think they’re a bad kind, though.)  I do know that I want them gone!  

OK, I realize that they have a right to be in the great outdoors as much as I do, but they are slowly starting to make their way in my house and that’s when I have a real problem!  For those of you who know me, you probably know how big of a phobia I have of spiders and how strong my reaction is when I’m confronted with one.  I get full-body chills just thinking of seeing one in my house!  A couple of weeks ago I looked down on our toy-covered living room floor and saw a HUGE black spider (like, an inch in diameter) scurrying across the room!  Thankfully, my brother was here and leapt into action while I jumped around and pointed while making weird squeaky noises, resisting the urge to abandon my kids and run out of the room.  I shudder to think what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been here and the spider was crawling close to one of my kids!  I suppose I would’ve had to be brave and save them, but I’m disgusted at the thought of such a huge spider on the floor where we play every day!  

Then, yesterday I was taking a shower, blissfully enjoying a few moments of quiet relaxation, and I opened my eyes to see a spider on the wall in front of me!  I tried to aim the shower head at him, but the water spray wouldn’t reach.  So what do I do but bolt out of the shower, run across the bedroom dripping water everywhere and snatch one of Clay’s tennis shoes from the closet and come back to smack the spider with the shoe.  I was very proud of myself since I usually don’t even kill them, I just make Clay do it.  Not to mention, this was a huge step forward from about a month ago when I saw a spider on the wall and instead of killing it with a paper towel, I drug out our vacuum cleaner, attached the long hose, and sucked it up!  (It gives me the heebie-jeebies to think it might still be alive somewhere in all the dirt in the vacuum!  I need to empty that thing.)

So here’s what I know, they’re making their way in our house and it’s only the very beginning of spider season.  When we moved here last August they were everywhere and continued to be a problem until around October or November.  If we didn’t have young kids I’d probably just go to the store and buy the strongest spider-killer spray I could find and soak our entire house in it.  But yeah, I guess that kind of stuff is pretty toxic and while I can make excuses for myself, I really can’t use that sort of thing when my kids could be ingesting it.  Even the outdoor sprays would probably find their way onto Evelyne’s shoes or toys, it just makes me really uncomfortable to use something like that.  

So I want to know if there are any non-chemical ways I can get rid of the spiders?  I went around with a broom and knocked-down all the webs I saw on the outside of the house the other day and by the next morning they were back.  I don’t know if I can continue to live in fear of another huge black spider one day crawling across my baby while he plays on the floor!  Help!

Sunny Days

Just like the Sesame Street song that I hear daily, I think I’m starting to have more “sunny days, everything’s a-ok” than I have in the past three months.  Part of that is because the sun is actually out here in Seattle, and after a long, dark winter, it’s a very welcome change!  We have really awful lighting in our house (unfortunately we rent, so we can’t change much) and it’s situated to where we rarely get any direct sunlight in our windows, so it felt like I’ve been living in a dark tomb for six months.  Now that the time has changed and the days are sunnier, my living room isn’t quite so depressing, and that’s a very good thing.  

Things are also starting to look brighter with Harris.  He’s three months old now, and although he’s still not a great sleeper (lately he’s up around 4-7 times a night), his little personality is starting to come-out and those smiles are getting bigger and sweeter every day.  It can’t be underestimated how much those smiles make the sleepless nights somehow ok in the morning.  There definitely is a lot of improvement in his general mood and fussiness, as long as I stay on top of him and make sure he has enough sleep during the day, there isn’t usually any random hysterical crying like there used to be.  (unless we’re in the car and he’s tired, he still won’t fall asleep in the carseat, so we do have to endure some screaming)  But now that he’s older and more aware of his environment, he’s a bit more adaptable and just fusses more than screams, so that’s at least a bit more manageable.  But aside from all that, he’s really a sweetheart who gives the brightest and most endearing smiles and giggles that make my day.  

Even though there are still lots of crazy days where nothing I do seems to work for him, I feel like we’re emerging from the worst of it and the next few months are going to be much happier.  I realized today that I really feel like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders and somehow I’ve gotten back to being more myself than I have been for the past 3 months. For awhile there, things were really touch and go, if I’m gonna be honest.  (And I guess I will be since that’s the name of my blog, eh?)  I had some pretty dark weeks where I really thought I was slipping into a depression, and I guess in some ways I kinda was.  There’s just only so much crying and nursing and sleep deprivation that a person can handle while trying to entertain a two year-old!   And I guess not a ton has changed except that his mood is a bit more stable now.  He’s still nursing every couple of hours day and night, and I’m not really getting anymore sleep than I have been since he’s been born.  But somehow it’s more ok now.  I’m still tired, and I still get kinda annoyed sometimes, but I’m starting to feel like, “Hey, we’re makin’ it.  We’re through the worst, and it’s just gonna get better from here on out.”  

Some mornings I wake-up (usually after having only been asleep for about 30 minutes) and think, “Oh my GOSH.  I’m so tired, I’ve practically been awake since 4:30 a.m. and now two kids are crying from their beds for me to come get them, Clay’s leaving for work, and how in the world am I going to handle this day?”   But every day God answers my prayers for strength and endurance, and the day almost always ends-up perfectly fine.  A yawn here and there, but nothing so terrible.  And on the days when I think, “Oh my gosh, I can’t do this.  I just can’t do it,” I’m reminded that I AM doing it.  I’ve been doing it, and I’ll keep on doing it, and day by day, things will keep getting better.  One day I will sleep again.  One day probably not anytime soon, but it is in my future.  And until then, God and my kids’ smiles and kisses will sustain me.

Three Months

Please excuse the blurry pictures from my crappy camera, but the smiles were too good to not show-off!  

Mommy Guilt

Never have I known so much Mommy Guilt as I have in the past three months.  Of course I have messed-up with Evelyne and felt guilty about it in the past two years, but it’s pretty much a daily thing now.  It sucks.

*Spending soooo much time in the back bedroom trying to get Harris to sleep and hearing Evelyne crying, “Mommy?  Mommy?” from the other room—Mommy Guilt.

*Holding Harris so he won’t wake-up after I just spent 30 minutes getting him to sleep and having to tell Evelyne that I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait just a little bit until I can change your poopy diaper–Mommy Guilt.

*Hearing Harris cry in the other room while I give Evelyne some much-needed one-on-one time—Mommy Guilt.

*Keeping Evelyne up past her naptime because I have to get Harris to sleep first, even though I know she’s exhausted and will probably be fussy and feel badly later—Mommy Guilt.

*Feeling like I’ve hardly given much face time to Harris because he’s been contentedly sitting in the bouncy seat since he woke-up and it’s the only time I get to hold Evelyne, and now it’s time to get him to sleep again–Mommy Guilt.

*Always telling Evelyne that she needs to wait or that I can’t do what she needs me to right now because I’m holding Harris—Mommy Guilt.

*Hearing Evelyne “I want to hold Mommy!” and crying because she just needs a cuddle, but my arms are already full of baby, and she has to wait yet again.  And all I want to do is hold her and not the baby—Mommy Guilt.

 

I know that over time this all gets worked-out, and as Harris gets older he’ll grow to be her best friend and the greatest gift I could give her.  But right now it’s really hard to feel like no matter what I do, one of my kids is going to be crying for me.  I just keep telling myself that I’m doing the best I can and that’s all I can do.  That’s all I can do right now.  I feel like I’m constantly making mistakes and am so afraid of screwing them up, my daily prayer is for the Lord to cover my mistakes and to comfort them when I can’t.  I’m asking for wisdom a lot, too, because it seems there are constantly decisions to make where I simply don’t know what’s best.  It’s a scary thing when you have the power to make daily decisions that will affect the lives of the ones you love the most, and it’s hard to have to consider what’s best for everyone involved, not just the individual.  Everyone ends-up making sacrifices.  But, I’m doing the best I can, and that’s all I can do.

It’s been three weeks, perhaps I should blog? Here’s one about sleep.

Yeah, I know, I’m totally MIA these days.  And for good reason, I just don’t have the time or energy to blog lately.  I’ll try to get my act together soon, but realistically, it might take awhile.

Things around here are still pretty hard with Harris, but I will say it’s better than it was.  He’ll be 12 weeks on Tuesday, and it really helps to keep looking back and remembering how bad it was and think, “Oh yeah, that was baaaad.  That really sucked.  It’s not great now, but it’s definitely not that bad anymore!”  He’s still a pretty bad sleeper, but I’m starting to figure him out a little bit, so as long as we stay in a regular napping routine and don’t let him get overtired by being awake too long (which he does at the drop of a hat), there’s not much crying.  But if we go somewhere and it happens to be when he should be napping or he gets tired while we’re out (he can only be happily awake for about a little over an hour these days and by the time he eats and we get out the door, we have about 40 minutes to go), then it gets bad.  To his credit, he does a lot more fussing than actual crying now since he’s aware of his environment enough to be distracted and more calm.  (This is only if he’s being held, of course.)  He still screams hysterically in the car if he’s anything less than fresh from a nap, so that still sucks.  On the way to church this morning it sounded like he was going to choke or something because he was crying so hard.  

We kinda have a weird nap routine that’s currently working for us.  It probably won’t work for very much longer, but that’s ok, it’s good for now.  I nurse him to sleep (don’t knock it unless you’ve had a colicky baby who screams hysterically for a really long time if you try to get him to sleep any other way but peacefully drifts-off in 10 minutes if you nurse–I literally don’t have the patience or physical energy to get him to sleep any other way. And even the times he does go down awake, it makes no difference in how he sleeps.) and he’ll sleep for 45 minutes in the swing or bed.  When he wakes-up I get him back to sleep with a paci and hold him for an hour.  (this is the part that gets difficult with a 2 year-old!)  Then I go put him back down in the bed and he’ll sleep for another 30-45 minutes.  So pretty much, he’s taking 2.5 hr. naps and that’s what it takes to keep him rested, anything less and he’s a mess.  I do that whole cycle 3 times a day, and then it’s bedtime around 7-8, depending on when he woke-up from his last nap.  It’s not great, but it’s doable and it works. 

The nights are still iffy.  He has gone 5 hours a couple of times, but I would say 4 is average for his first stretch.  (I usually get the last hour or two of that since he goes to bed early.)  After that he’s up about every 2.5-3 hours if he’s well-rested from the previous day’s naps.  If he’s overtired, he’ll wake-up more often, like every 45 minutes- 1.5 hrs.  On a good night, I’m up 3 times, on a bad night, 4-5 times.  There’s no real way for me to ever nap during the day since he sleeps in such short spurts and it never times right with Evelyne’s nap, so I’m pretty tired.  I think I’ve maybe had 3 naps in the past month or so, one of those being today.  I think I’m so sleep-deprived that my body is just used to it because I rarely feel very tired during the day, but I know lack of sleep is definitely factoring into my emotions and irritability.

 I’ve been re-reading my well-worn copy of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, (a very high recommendation, by the way!) and some other resources about infant temperament and how it affects sleep.  As I’ve learned more, I’m amazed at how different and unique each baby is, truly, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to babies!  What works for parents of an easy baby does NOT work for parents of a baby with a more “difficult” temperament.  (And it’s more than a little annoying when moms of easy babies think that their baby is such a wonderful sleeper because of something magical they did!  I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, this is just a general impression I’ve gotten since becoming a mom.)  I think I’m understanding that some of Harris’ sleep problems are just a part of his current temperament and are something he has to grow out of, there’s not much I can do about it other than being careful that he gets enough sleep and wait for him to get a little older.   When he’s a little older, we’ll reevaluate and change our plan of action.  

On a happy note, he is getting cuter and cuter and more fun to be around!  He has the sweetest smiles, and I swear the boy is ticklish because he squirms and smiles and sometimes even giggles when I tickle him!  When I keep him rested, he’s the happiest and most chill baby who loves to smile at me, so that definitely helps after a sleepless night.  He’s turning into a real sweetheart when he’s not fussing at me!  

So yeah, that’s now.  Still in survival mode, counting the days until he turns 4 months.  But it is much more bearable than it was, so although some days I still feel like I’m hanging by a thread, I’m still hanging.