How I'm going

RUOK Day is a great initiative.  I haven't had much time to do a lot of reading or research into it all, and only know about it what I have briefly read on Karlee's blog and the brief article I saw in between kid wrangling on The 7pm Project last night, but what I did learn about it made me want to at least know a bit about it.

I thought I'd write a post about how I'm going.  An honest one.  Honestly, I'm going good and coping well....  deep down, I really am.  I absolute love my life as a stay at home mum and wife to my wonderful husband.  On the surface though, there are days where I am great and other days where I am just kind of here.  Not in a bad way, and I get all of the necessary things done (... trust me, there are A LOT of 'necessary things' that I need to do every day, so it's not like I'm slacking off or anything!) but things like housework don't get done, simply because I don't have the energy.

Bless my gorgeous little youngest child.  I've been trying to get her into a decent night time sleeping pattern since we first bought her home.  She just starts to do the same thing for a few nights in a row, like sleeping from 7:30 - 8pm until 3am then through until 7am, and the next week it will 7:30 - 8pm until 11pm then 3am then 5am.  It's just ridiculous.  We have been introducing solids lately, so I expected some distruption to it, but I also expected it to settle down.  I kind of set little goals for her and do what I can to try and help her, like giving her lots of milk feeds or having 'at home' days so she can have all of her sleeps, we have time out in the sun and time in the 'energy burning' toys, like the Jolly Jumper, we give her a bath in the early evening, all the things 'they' suggest, but nothing in particular seems to ake any difference.  I have now settled with "I'll be happy if she sleeps from 8pm - early morning, whatever time it is, so long as it is fairly regular and then through until 7am.  The last few days, since the weather has gotten nicer, the sun has been coming out a little bit earlier and the birds (namely kookaburra's, crows and rainbow lorikeets....  the one in our garage may not help either!) she has literally been waking up with the birds, anywhere between 5 and 5:30am......  it's really just too early.  6:30, maybe 6am I would be ok with, but 5:30 is just too early!!  I can't make any noise at all in fear of waking Mackenna and if Piper starts getting grouchy and tired, as she normally does around 6 - 6:30, she starts squealing, which echos in our eerie quiet house and nothing keeps her quiet!!  She woke Mackenna up at 6am the other day and while Mackenna dealt with it ok and just got on with her day, I don't really like her being up that early.  Just makes all of our days really long!!!

So anyways....  her lack of any night time pattern makes me soooo tired, because I don't know whether to go to bed early (by early I mean 10:30pm) and risking being up again in an hour or so, or have the chance of getting 5 hours good sleep, or just stay up and wait for her to have a feed at 11pm.  She still wakes up in the early morning regardless of whether she has the late night feed, so I am going to be up again anyways at some stage....  that doesn't bother me, because I expect it.  I always put her back in bed thinking "sweet....  this SHOULD put her through until 6 - 7 (especially when she's going back to bed at 4am)" and then when I wake up to her crying and notice that the sun isn't up yet, roll over and look at the clock and it's like 5:08am, I just want to get my car keys and drive off and let Todd deal with it.  (I'd only go to my parents in law, or our friends house for some more sleep, I wouldn't take off and not come back or anything like that :P)  She has never really taken to a dummy, but recently I've been using one a bit more during the day to try and attempt to give it to her at night as a resettling tool, which has been going well so far.  It would have been great to have avoided a dummy altogether, but if it helps her to sleep and resettle without a feed, then I'll use it!!  Half the time she isn't even hungry... just uses me as her own little dummy, the milk is just a bonus, and that's not really something I want to encourage.   

I went through a stage of being angry about it and would trash around in bed until I finally decided that yes, I had no choice but to get up and got up, waking Todd up in the process and let's just say, make his attempt at getting back to sleep rather uncomfortable.  I did realise how annoying that must have been right around the same time we had a 'discussion' about it, which ended up with us in fits of laughter about my aptly nicknamed "pyschotrashing."  By that stage, I'd realised this was just how it was going to be and there was no point in making everyone's life difficult and wasting energy on being angry about it.  Now though, it just upsets me to the point where I get up, feed and settle her enough that I can leave her in the swing or in bed with Todd and go and sit outside where I can't hear her if she is making noise and cry.  I cry because it really just hurts.  I really love my sleep and as it is suppose to, my body needs the sleep to just revive it.  At the moment, everything is just tired....  my arms, legs, back, neck, even my hands and feet are sore and tired.  But that's ok, I expect that and I am happy to deal with it, because I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel somewhere in the girls growing up a bit (.... which will no doubt bring a whole other variety of reasons for us to lie awake at night!!)  If I could just rely on like at least 5 hours completely unbroken sleep and not having to get up until sometime after 6am every night, I would honestly be over the moon.  And I don't think that is unreasonable to expect from a 6 month old who is having 3 good sized solid meals of a variety of vegies, fruits & cereals, at least 4 breastfeeds and a bottle of formula before bed.... is it?  Maybe it is?

I can deal with feeling like crap and I can still get on with my days and be here to play servant to my girls (and I literally do... Mackenna knows that if she can't do something, all she has to do is stand there and urgently go "uh,uh,uh,uh" and I'll come running to help her, or stand at the pantry door and point for a snack if she's hungry and I'll open it and stand there for 5 minutes while she chooses what she wants!!) but it just doesn't inspire me to do anything.  It honestly takes a lot of planning to make sure I have everything I need (... I don't make life easy for myself sometimes though, as I have a lot of clutter around the place and I have a tendancy to try and 'over-organise' simple things) and to get both the girls ready in a decent timeframe to get out and back in time for lunch and afternoon naps, so when I'm really, really tired, it's just easier to stay at home.  Mackenna doesn't mind, but we sacrificed Playgroup this week (... oh shit....  been meaning to message Charmaine about that.... still didn't let her know we weren't going :S) and she has barely gotten out of different pj's (to save on washing... if we aren't going out and I'm the only person who is going to see them, why bother having to wash clothes.... might sound lazy, but I have to try and be as efficient as I can be!) and today she let me know that she wasn't happy with being at home and wanted to go out, so it just isn't fair on her.  I know her Nana would be more than happy to come and pick her up and take her out with her for the day, but it's an effort even to organise that (it isn't really, at all, but at the overtired point that I am at....  it really seems like it is a huge effort!!)  She really needs the time out though, so I am determined to take her out somewhere tomorrow.  Haven't decided yet what to do, but I've got a few things in mind that I'll see how I feel tomorrow and what Piper does overnight.  I know it sounds horrible, but it kind of doesn't matter what happens with Piper and if she spends from 6am - 1pm awake (... and I have to deal with a grouchy, grizzling little Piper!) or just having little here and there catnaps, Mackenna has had to deal with what we have needed to do for Piper (I've also stayed at home so Piper can have a long morning sleep to catch up on the time she is missing in the morning..... just happens to fall right at the time that we would normally have our outings) so it's only fair that we do something for Mackenna and let Piper just 'suck it up' (.... I know that sounds terrible, but I'm the only one that has to deal with the consequences, so I'm allowed to make those kinds of statements!!)

So anyways... now that I've spent way too long rambling about something that probably isn't anywhere near as bad as I make it out to be, I might get back to the topic (... unlike me to get sidetracked...) so other than having a crying session every morning this week and not getting enough sleep, which just makes everything in life difficult, I am doing really great.  No matter how upset I am feeling in the early morning (and I really must apologise to Todd who leaves every morning with an often very upset me, but he has to go and knows that there isn't anything he can do to help or fix it and that I'll get over it eventually) whenever I go and get Mackenna out of bed and she smiles at me with the most beautiful little smile I have ever seen and then starts madly chatting away to me (..wonder where she gets that from :S) any upset feelings that I have just disappear and I do just get on with it.  (My 2 or 3 cups of tea and early morning caffeine help that a little bit too, but I'm sure there's only so long you can keep going on caffeine!)  I don't get upset at Piper, but I'm sure she senses that I'm not happy with her, so I make it up to her with lots of cuddles and 'fun' 'eye contact' time through the day once I've moved on and she knows that I'm sorry just by the way she responds with big smiles and chuckles. I really am so very blessed to have been able to experience this wonderful side of what life has to offer and through all my whinging, I never, ever want to be seen to be taking my family for granted.  Whenever I am feeling hard done by, I just squeeze my kids a bit tighter and think about how lucky that I am that am able to do that, unlike a huge number of parents who's kids have been taken away from them.  I'm also in great health, except for a back full of dodgy muscles, which over the years have just become a part of day to day life (find me someone that doesn't have a dodgy back of some sort) and so are both of my kids.    Really....  I don't have much to complain about.    

In regards to adjusting to life with 2 kids too, I'm going well with that.  I'm dealing with the fact that during the kids waking hours, there isn't really a lot of time to do anything other than fulfil their wishes without them sacrificing something (as in, they spend longer in their high chair then they should, or have to wait an extra 15mins for their meals etc.)  Having my kids at 30 meant that I had been able to witness many of my friends and family 'do it first' so I could watch and learn about the good and bad and right and wrong of parenting so I don't find the actually parenting side difficult.  I just find the constant 'on-call' 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year a bit hard.  Being the girls mother means that at all times, I am 100% responsible for them.  Even if they are off with someone having fun when we go out somewhere, I am still aware of what they are doing, because if that person gets distracted or something happens that Mackenna gets into trouble 1) the person would feel incredibly bad and I don't want that and 2) I have to deal with the consequences if she gets hurt or if she decides to be naughty or not share, I want to ensure she is disciplined.  I don't know....  I'm sure I don't have to justify what I am trying to say... I'm sure every parent knows what I mean.  I absolutely love it when I don't have to be responsible for them and they are completely out of my hands and I don't at all feel guilty for saying that.  I am a great mother and give them every scrap of energy I have at all times I am with them, so time out to recharge is not a bad thing.  Sleep overs with Nana & Grandad are the best!  Piper is yet to have a one, but it is coming soon (.... I hope.....  after a big rant about how unpredictable her night time sleeping is....?!?)  But yeah, that's the part of the job that I find a bit difficult at times.  But that's all part and parcel of being a parent and I know as the girls get a bit older and can do more for themselves (when I'll be whinging about how I want my babies back :P) it should be easier.....  (maybe I should just say different)

Anyway...  I really need to go to bed.  I'm glad I got to write this post.  I'm not going to reread it before I post it and because I am writing it with my eyes barely open, it is probably full of grammatical errors and half of it probably doesn't make any sense at all, but I'll reread it in the morning and fix it up then if I need to....  fingers crossed it's at 9am and not 6!!!

How are you going?