Not enough

My cousin had a post on Facebook this morning which stirred up some feelings for me. Not new ones which you know if you’ve been reading me for a while.

 I have carried a child within my body. I have nourished and comforted a baby upon my chest. My body is not perfect, but when I look in the mirror I am happy because I see a mother, and there is no greater honor or blessing. Make this your status if you’re proud to be a mother

Now, let me start with yes, I am proud of my body.  I am blessed that it served me so well, creating and carrying two healthy and thriving boys. I am blessed with the ability to breast feed for as long as I desire. 

But this is crap to me. Not the ability to create human life but to shake off my appearance and push aside how I really wish to look.  To shrug my shoulders and say “Ehh, its good enough IM A MOM!”  FTN!  I am a Mom and while I am one who is struggling within my head right now, I have no desire to be looked at as a mother.  “She looks good for a Mom.”  No.  I will look good, period.  Why do people say that?  It’s a backhanded compliment, no?  I am a woman; “Mother” is one of my hats, not my identity.

I won’t stop trying to be healthy, physically or mentally.  I won’t ever be less than I can be just because I am a Mom.  I will do the opposite, I will strive to be my absolute best because I am a Mother, because I deserve it but most of all, because my children deserve it, too.

End Rant.

Holding on with both hands

It’s happening again. The black hole I’ve seen before, the one where I am suck in this fresh hell and there is no way out. No vision of the after, just today, just this exhaustion and this downward spiral that I can’t see past.

It’s not as bad as before but is that because I know what to call it this time, because there’s no denial? Or is it really not as bad, I don’t know but it’s not pretty. I’m barely treading water regardless. It’s just hard right now.  One if not both of them always need something, always, 24 hours a day.  Then there’s the other one, the one that works his ass off and needs clean socks and dinner when he gets home.  He rarely has both on the same day and often he comes home to a mess of a house, a wife and a toddler who is naked from the waist down and a screaming infant. I swear I’m doing my absolute best which my be part of why it is so heartbreaking when I come up so horribly short. So very short.

I’m told to let the house get dirty, stop cooking, and basically stop being myself. I don’t know how to stop, this is what I do. I clean, i cook, I cut and paste and just keep going because it’s all I can do. I get dressed and put on makeup and we get out of the house and do the things that we love and it helps for a while but eventually we get home and that weight is on my chest again.

There are so many open offers of help, to just bring the kids over so I can nap or if I need something from the store. All honest and well meaning but I can’t drop off a kid who may crap his pants and a baby who you can’t put down. So I keep them no matter how little sleep there was the night before.

I know that this wont last, that more sleep will come, that I will lose the weight, that Nate will stop having accidents but today it’s my life. Today I feel hopeless so I will keep going until it passes.

CHCB

Ben’s official nickname; Constant Human Contact Baby. Dear god, someone help us. 

Mike and I are not baby holders. We love babies but we love them in their swing and in their crib and on the play mat. We like to hold babies when it is time for them to eat or when we are in the mood to snuggle them (which is a lot but not all the live long day.) Nate was all for this type of parenting he was easy-going and mellow. Ben? HAHAHA! OMFG WHERE IS THE VODKA?  You have to hold him, it’s not up to us, it’s up to him and he will remind my in 2 seconds flat that he is in charge. He has about two hours per day where he is content, one period in the morning and one in the evening, the rest of the time he is one whimper away from a total meltdown.  Except when we are out of the house, he loves outside, a moving car and shopping. We get out a lot becuase the day is just easier that way. Except that it’s not because he’s 8 weeks old and up 3 times a night to eat so getting out is sort of like a zombie field trip.

He has to be held. I fought it for weeks until he finally broke me when I couldn’t take the screaming one more second and strapped the little stinker to my chest where he’s pretty much been since then. I do everything with him either in my arms or in the bjorn (again, thanks metabolism for completely disregarding this!) while I’m adjusting to it I hate it. I just want to use the darn bathroom without him. It’s driving us a bit crazy. I keep testing him, putting him in the swing  for little periods, or in his bouncer and it seems like he will be fine and then, whaaaaa.  It’s making Nate a bit nuts, too, he’s acting like it’s a noise contest and just yells over the top of him and that’s as relaxing as you’re imagining.   But then there are those two good hours and all is right with the world.  I can’t get enough of happy Ben though I love CHCB, I really enjoy happy Ben. I feel guilty for being frustrated and while I melt as soon as I pick him up and instantly he feels so good and I love having him in my arms (because he shuts up immediately) I just really hope this doesn’t last for ever, I want my left arm back and to stop driving extra laps around our block . I’d like to have a relaxing day at home where he can be put in his swing long enough for me to load the dishwasher or fold some laundry.  I want to pick him up because I can’t resist him, not because he’s crying again. This wont last forever, right?

This Face

I wont lie, I stare at my kids all day long.  I just can’t help it, they are perfect to me. Ben is getting much more expressive, no full on smile yet but lots of little grins.  It can really get a sleepy Mom through a day. Except for that last one, that one sort of stops time.

The second half

I have been looking at my calendar for the rest of 2010 and even if this baby magically starts sleeping I still don’t think I’m going to get any sleep.  I cannot believe how much we have going on, the alternate title for this post? 101 reason to drop the baby weight.  Here it is, I doubt you’re interested but I need to see it all mapped out but without dates or it would just scream, hey we are out-of-town, please take my TiVo (do the kids still say out-of-town?) (I refuse to say vacay!)

August

Mikes parents visit

Trip to Sandusky Kalahari Resort

Apts- Me: Dentist- Haircut

Ben: 8 week check up

September

Cj visits

Dad visits

Mike’s Birthday

Apts- Me: Haircut

October

Nate’s Birthday & Party

Shelley, Becky and Clara visit

Trip to the Outerbanks- Ashley’s wedding

Halloween

Apts- Nate and Ben’s well kid/baby checkups

Me: Haircut

November

Kay, Dan and kids here the week of thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Apts- Me: Haircut

December

Our 12th (dating) anniversary

CHRISTMAS

The End.

Maybe you have a super hopping social calender but I do not.  Mine usually has haircuts and bill reminders, not multiple things per month.  Or visitors or trips.  Just as I thought I was at the finish line, the baby is here and the list of to-do’s before he arrived are done, now I have started planning a 3rd Birthday party, I’m booking tickets for North Carolina, and on, and on, and on.  The good is these lists keep me from having endless family day’s in bed where we color and read and watch YouTube videos of trains and bulldozers. Also good, my house is looking really great as a result. My big project that I want to complete by October is the kid’s (cat) bathroom.  The plan has been done for over a year, it’s time to get it done.

This is a lot.  Lots of fun, work, money and I cannot be fat!  I will need new things to wear and swimsuits for next weekend and pedi’s and wheeeeee! It’s going to be 2011 before I know it.

Who’s the trainee

It’s been2.5 weeks since Nate woke up and answered yes to a question I’d been asking him for months.

“How about we wear big-boy underwear today?” “OKAY!” and that was that. It was on.

I was so happy, so excited, so proud! Maybe he’d be trained by 3, oh this will be wonderful.

Wonderful my ass.  That first week was hard,y’all.  I decided to set the timer for 15 minutes until he got the hang of it.  It is not enjoyable to hear a timer every 15 minutes and try to nurse a baby who takes all the live long day to get it done. I was constantly upsetting his meals and as the days went on and I thought he could hold it I was cleaning up random puddles with an infant attached to me at the chest. Rad.

But he’s doing it, or we are I don’t know but he’s wearing underwear and wants out of his “sleepytime underwear” pull-ups the second he is up in the morning. “Diapers are for Baby Ben, I wear big-boy underwear!” 

I think I can say, or I hope anyway that it was the hardest week with two. Ben’s getting better about needing constant human contact now but in that first week I had to have him either in my arms or strapped to me. Let me say I didn’t loose as much weight as I deserved that week.  I don’t imagine training is ever easy but doing it in the week that your then 5 week old baby wont sleep or let you put him down to use the bathroom yourself is not the most ideal time try something that you have no idea how to do that also involves a tiny persons bladder, copious amounts of paper towels, a steam mop and this is the best part, tiny toddler sized boxer briefs.

But here we are the kid is potty trained.  He does great when we are out of the house, LOVES a urinal and even poops in public.

God help me, I got a hair cut so I don’t look as much like a mom but here I am blogging about poop. Oy! Whatever, I survived and now have just one kid in diapers. Go me.