The Compassionate One?

This weekend there was some major role reversing in my house and I don’t like it.  What I don’t like even more is that I’m not sure I would react any differently at this moment as I did when it happened.

If you remember last weekend was one with little sleep.  So much so that I didn’t even go to work on Monday.  Starting Monday night things weren’t too bad with Laney.  She pretty much slept through the night all week   She woke up earlier than usual a few days, but nothing too out of the ordinary.  

Lillian was pretty good all week.  No major fights, no bathroom accidents and no major bed time issues either!

B, well, he behaved, but it wasn’t his finest week.  Monday he came down with a cold and basically came home from work and went to bed.  Tuesday he bowled, Wed he came home whining and complaining again.  Thursday I was glad for a night away and Friday he was still miserable.

Well Wednesday I started coming down with the cold too.  But you know since I’m mom I had to suck it up…

You’ve been home with the kids for two hours buy yourself and neither one of them wants to leave you alone? Oh that’s too bad cause my head’s been hurting all day…

What, you’re tired?  Well, get the girls fed, bathed and to bed and you can go to bed…

Why haven’t you taken anything?  Oh you can’t take much cause your nursing?  Ok, well I’m going to take the last 2 of the pills you can take cause they worked last time…

This may or may not be a slight exaggeration of how things happened, but in my snot filled head it’s how I felt…

So Friday night, when Lillian comes to my room, only 2 short hours after I get a once again not sleeping Laney to bed, crying because he throat hurts I tried my best.  She asked for a cough drop, but because she was going to pass back out I said no.  One I didn’t want her choking and two I didn’t want it falling out of her mouth onto my bed or even worse getting stuck in her hair!  She’s crying and screaming, B comes in, an I’m suggesting different drinks for her (she has had no signs of getting this cold and nothing is wrong other than a sore throat, or at least I had to assume since she wouldn’t answer me with anything other than a high pitched whine).  B goes in the bathroom looking for something, I don’t really know what, I’m assuming medicine, but we don’t have any because she refuses to take it anyway.  So I’m trying to explain to Lilli that crying out like that is only going to make it hurt more.  I become exasperated.  I try to give her a drink and she screams at me “No, I don’t want it!”  So I say to her “Well I don’t know what to tell you if you aren’t going to listen to me.” And I lay back down.  She’s now in my bed next to me crying.  B yells at me for not being nicer.  He says something to her and she calms down enough to watch “her show” and after a half hour we are back to sleep.

I won’t go into the next waking with Laney or my lack of sleep the rest of the weekend, but I feel bad about the way I spoke to her.  But right now, in this moment, my more awake (but not more rested) self would tell her the same thing.

When did I become the one with no patience?  When did B become the one with the compassion?  Last night I wanted to yell at Laney because she wouldn’t stop screaming and I can’t figure out why.  I feel so inept as a mom right now.

Let's Talk Work

Everything in life is work.  Work is work, relationships (of all kinds) are work, parenting is work.  Even the fun things like vacation take work, whether it's the work to plan of the work you do to pay for it.

Right now my actual job is what it is.  I'm trying not to stress over it and just be happy to have one and focus on getting things done.  Some days are harder than others.  Normally by Friday afternoon all I want to do is go home and hold Delaney and watch Lillian run around like the crazy 3 year old she is.

Right now what is taking the most work in my life is my marriage.  If you've read my last few posts you know that I've had a lot to complain about and really I probably made those sound a little better than what things were really like.  After Friday morning's issue with clean boxers I pretty much lost it on the way to work.  I had had enough.  I sent B a message and told him that if Lillian was going to be gone for the night on Saturday that we needed to both be home and get things off our chest.  Problem was, the longer I sat at work, the angrier I got, the more I cried and the more I felt like just giving up.  In my hear I knew that's not really what I wanted, but I wasn't sure I had the strength for anything else.  Around 2:30 B sent me a message asking if he could go race his buddy's car at the track.  This made me livid.  Basically his thought was that if he couldn't go do something Saturday night he better do it Friday, which meant leaving me with both the girls all night.  I didn't know what to do.  Part of me didn't want to let him go because it was just going to add fuel to my rage, but the other part didn't even want to see him so I didn't really care.  I finally just text him and said "If you want to go ahead.  I'm honestly really upset and I don't think I can keep it together with you in front of the girls."  Don't get me wrong I don't want my girls growing up thinking relationships are always sunshine and rainbows, but right now it scares Lillian if we yell and she always thinks it's her fault if I cry.  B had no idea I was upset and asked what was wrong.  And although I didn't want to do anything over text messaging I couldn't ignore him.  I just told him "I'm sick of avoiding an argument and putting myself last.  I'm doing the best I can but its not working and I can't do anymore than I already am."  Of course he apologized for his fit that morning and said he'd do his own laundry, but that isn't going to fix things, I told him it's more than that.  I told him "I want to have a plan of who is responsible for what, I want to have less to worry about and get done, I want to be able to leave the girls with you and not worry about you being too stressed out to handle it."

In the mean time he had found out he couldn't race the car and wanted to invite his friend and wife over for a cook out.  In my head all I could think was great, as if I don't have enough already going on.  I told him no, I'd been crying all day and the last thing I wanted was to entertain. He ended up calling me and I lost it.  At my desk, at work, in our new open office area.  Talk about embarrassed.  I went to the bathroom and told him we needed to talk, but I couldn't do it then.  He figured out that I didn't really want to see him and I explained I don't, if I do right now I might say things I'll regret and it's just going to be a fight.  I told him I was taking the girls to my mom's camp for the night.  When we hung up I could tell he was crying.

I grabbed the girls after work, we went home, I packed in about 10 minutes and we were off.  I was already feeling better just knowing I wasn't going to have to put on a face for the night.  We did pretty much nothing that night, walked to town, grabbed dinner, walked back and it was bed time for the girls.  B text me a few times told me he was worried, but to take all the time I needed.  I told him I would and that he needed to make a list of things that bother him and the things he does in a day.

I had a few glasses of wine with my mom and I was exhausted and went to bed too.  Saturday morning I woke up with so much running through my head so I made a list of all the things that bother me.  Lillian had a blast playing with her cousins all day and we finally headed home about 5pm.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how our "talk" went.

Finding Peace

That is my one and only goal right now.  I just feel so unsettled in everything!  So unsettled I don't even know what to right after that.  I'm getting to the point where I just don't know what is most important to me right now.  I can't even enjoy the time I spend with the girls because I'm constantly thinking about what I should be doing.

Some times I wish I could just put the kids in a sound proof room so that I could argue with B when he starts his crap.  This morning he came to me (surprisingly calm at first) saying that he thinks he's being forgotten when it comes to laundry because he had no clean boxers.  Maybe he's right, I don't do his laundry very often, but I have my reasons.  1 - Why should I when he doesn't even have the courtesy to put them away, half the time they just end up right back on the floor with his dirty clothes and I don't have the time to be re-washing clothes because he can't put them away. 2 - He can't be bothered to even put his dirty clothes in mine and the girls' pile of dirty clothes (which by the way in currently just on the floor because he has 3 laundry baskets taken up with CLEAN, FOLDED clothes.  I'm pretty sure his dresser is about empty). 3 - He can't seem to take his boxers and socks out of his work clothes and put them with the regular clothes (I refuse to wash his nasty work clothes with the rest of the clothes).  So after he calm comment he got more and more irritated until he was throwing a fit and throwing all his clean clothes on the floor looking for a pair of boxers.  And I must say it really pisses me off that he asks ME every morning if I know where some are.  If it wouldn't cause a fight (cause I'm having a hard time not exploding) I would answer "If you put your fucking clothes away you'd know where they are!"  Oh and his other comment was that he was going to start doing his own laundry, which meant he was gonna stop doing another chore, most likely the dishes.  Like he does them all the time!!!

I'm really irritated how he's been handling Lillian's attitude lately.  I know its rough and she has been horribly whiny and mouthy, but he just can't seem to grasp the concept of staying calm yourself helps he keep calmer and defuses the situation much quicker.  Everything is instantly "do you want a spanking?"  Which some times is the only thing that works, as much as I hate it.  And he has started to mumble things under his breath that if Lillian ever heard would scare her and break her heart.  I don't know what is going on with him, but its taking its toll on our family and if he can't let me help he's gonna have to go figure it out on his own.

Even now I sit here at my desk at work writing this instead of working just to try and get some things out so I can concentrate.  I'm having fights in my head with him and getting upset.  At this point I don't think him saying "I'm sorry, you're right, I'm going to change it," is going to change anything about how I'm feeling.

I feel like my life needs a makeover and you can't just do that...

Passing Time

It almost feels like time is passing without my knowledge.  How did I get to 21 weeks already?  Things feel so emotionally different this time.  I feel kind of detached or something.  I feel so busy with every day life that I don't have the time to enjoy being pregnant, but that has me wondering, what did I "enjoy" so much last time.

I've started freaking out about picking a name, I have this feeling I will bond better if I have something to call her other than Baby Girl.  Problem is I don't know if I like any of the names.  I went through the entire girls name list on babynames.com and came up with a list of about 30 names to consider.  I've narrowed it down to 15 or so and I think I have a top 5 out of that, but not a one of them has a middle name and my brain feels like mush trying to think of one.

Then this week it hit me.  I have 19 weeks, if I make it to 40 weeks this time.  Since I work full time that pretty much leaves me 19 weekends, which is 38 days to prepare my house for this baby girl.  Considering I have a trip the weekend of Nov 11th, family visiting Nov 10th and 26th weekends and pretty much every weekend in Dec busy due to Holidays, I'm down to only 11 weekends and when you subtract 3 more so every thing is ready by 37 weeks, just in case, I'm down to 8 weekend, that's 16 days!!!  Granted I try and sneak things in here and there, but some of the work will be a whole weekend project, like cleaning my craft and other stuff out of her room and painting and such.  So I finally started looking at bedding this week and realized that I have no idea what I want!

But besides this stress I'm going through now in an effort to not have anxiety later, everything seems to be going well.  Here are some new ultrasound pictures that I got last week when we went back to get her heart and profile views.

Flaws

I have decided to give up on the party, there is just too much crap going on between the day we find out and the weekend we were going to have the party.  I'm very disappointed because this was going to be the only "celebration" for this baby.  It's just been too stressful trying to plan around this and that.  In reality it doesn't really matter to anyone else how they find out the gender of the baby.

There is also a flaw with my Poll, I still want to do the drawing for the hat, but if you want to be entered you also have to leave a comment with your guess because apparently I can't see who votes for what using that poll.  Sorry for that.

Then we have my own flaws, or possibly pregnancy flaws, but either way, I'm going nuts.  I'm already having anxiety attacks over leaving my babies when I have to return to work.  I still HATE leaving Lillian every morning and I know that when this baby gets here I'm going to feel even worse about leaving her because I will have even less one on one time with her.  Moving her to her big girl bed has really hit me hard.  I didn't realize how much the cuddle at night in my bed meant to me until it was gone.  I know that for her own good and mine I can't let her continue to be in the habit of going to bed with mommy, but I miss it.  It makes me cry.  I know it will get better, but these damn hormones make me feel like I'll always feel this way.  I've even wondered if I'm really cut out for this whole Mommy thing.  I mean I know I can raise my children up to be good, decently intelligent adults, but what I don't know is if I can handle the "firsts" and the letting go.  This Big Girl Bed has made me realize how many firsts I have coming, there are so many!!!  Her first day of school, her first time being left alone, her first shower without me in the room... That's just a few, but right now the thought of everyone of them makes me want to cry!

I'm sure it's just hormones, but I just feel like this feeling will never go away...

BEER???

Either when I was pregnant with Lillian I didn’t have as many stressful days, or I was completely miserable and have chosen to block it out of my memory.

After a long frustrating day at work typically I would go home and have a beer or a glass of wine, or wait for days (that felt like weeks) for Thursday night bowling to roll around, to relax and take the edge off of feeling like I’m losing my sanity. While I still have the stress relief of imagining I’m rolling a rather heavy ball at whatever my current frustration is on Thursday nights, it just isn’t cutting it!

I need a new method of relaxation that isn’t going to take time from Lillian or cause me to be up until midnight, or make me gain 100lbs.

I know picky right?

There has to be something out there that will help relieve some stress, release some endorphins or something!

So, what is your new “drink” of choice???

Room for Change

I am having a very hard time deciding on what to do for bedrooms for our little ones. Do I want them to share a room? Do I give up my craft room to still have a separate play room? Do I give Lillian’s crib to the new baby? Do I get Lillian a toddler bed? Do I give Lillian the futon we have? Do I combine Lillian’s room and play room into the bigger room? Do I combine my craft room and play room?

Ok so rather than rambling off all of the question rolling through my head over and over I’ll start explaining.

Right now we have a full size bed we are keeping at my mother’s, plus a full size futon bed that is currently in the play room.

We bought Lillian’s crib with the fact in mind that she will use it for a long time. It turns from a crib to a day bed to a full size bed. Of course, this was back when the rooms we had were almost twice the size of what they are now.

I think we could fit her dresser and full size bed in her room, but that’s about it. Right now we have her crib, rocking chair, book shelf and dresser.

This is what the room set up is. The second bedroom is exactly the opposite except for window placement so any arrangement options would be the same. The second bedroom is currently my craft/workout room. It has all my bow, crochet and sewing stuff along with the treadmill.

Yes it looks roomy, but it's not to scale


The third room we have isn’t exactly a bedroom since it doesn’t have a closet, but we could still use it for one. It is currently being used as the playroom and guests typically sleep on the futon when they spend the night.

So here at the options we have:
1 – Leave Lilli in her current room with her crib. – This means buying new crib and either getting rid of my craft room. I can’t combine it with the play room because the futon would still be in there.

I don’t know if I like this idea for a few reasons. 1) a new crib is more expensive than a toddler bed. 2) I’d have to give up my craft room and I have no idea what I’d do with the treadmill that I will obviously need.

2 – Leave Lilli in her current room but buy her a new toddler bed. – Everything would be the same expect we wouldn’t have to buy a new crib.

3 – Leave Lilli in her room, but give her the futon. – We wouldn’t need to buy any new furniture and I could move my craft stuff and/or treadmill to the play room. I don’t know if I like the idea of my craft stuff, possibly dangerous, in the play room where I feel the kids should be able to play relatively unsupervised. If my stuff was in there I’d be worried about then hurting them selves or ruining something I’ve worked hard on.

4 – Move Lilli into the play room and give her the futon. Basically this would just mean moving her dresser. This would mean I could keep my craft room and baby would get Lilli’s bedroom and crib. I like the idea of still having my craft room, but I’m not sure I want toys in Lilli’s room. Right now her room is a place for settling down and sleeping, not playing and it works well for us. Especially when she doesn’t think she needs a nap. If moving her in with her toys and keeping the crib was an option I’d be happy cause she doesn’t try to get out of her crib, but I have no where to put the futon.

5 – Put Lilli and the baby in the bigger play room – We would then turn Lilli’s room into the play room. I’m not sure I want the kids sharing a room, although baby will be in our room for a few months until the nightly feedings stop. Also Lilli’s room isn’t as visible from everywhere in the house like the play room is. I like to keep an eye on her while I cook dinner or whatever.

6 - Put the play room or craft room in the dining room - Truth be told we don't use the dining table much, we typically eat in the living room.  I hate it, but can't seem to get B to revert to a kitchen table.  At any rate there is still room for the table in the kitchen should I get lucky enough to have a family dinner again some day.  The only problem I have with this idea is messes.  Lillian put her own toys "away".  Usually this consists of her just throwing her toys back in the toy room where we can clothes the door.  The craft room could go out in the open, but I tend to get a little messy when I'm working and don't always get to finish projects the same day I start them.
There are a few random thoughts that bother me.
~ I don’t know if I like moving Lilli directly to a full size bed. I know she would do fine in it as she’s slept in them alone before, but I fear I’m taking away some of her childhood, like having a tent on her bed and all the fun kid bedding with her favorite characters.
~ If we move her to the bigger room will she think it’s because we are giving the baby her room. My little girl is smart, I don’t know if she will just accept that she is “a big girl now so she gets the big room.”
~ Should I ask Lilli if she wants the big bed? What if the thought of being in the big bed in the big room is scary to her?

OK, so now that you've had a sneak peak into my over worked and over tired mind, what do you think?  All and any suggestions are welcome to help me through this because according to DH (you pick what the D stands for) "Its your decision, I don't care."

All Jumbled Up

That how the thoughts in my head are.  So as much as I hate to do it, I'm going to give you some bullet points.

 

• We survived the all mighty Irene.  Not that I thought we wouldn't, we do live upstate, not on the coast, and the weather man was only calling for rain and wind.  Yes it was all day rain, but nothing too heavy and only a few inches maybe.  Some people blew this way out of proportion and really irritated me, but alas it's over and we all survived and I was right.
• I have a brother whom I've never met.  I've known about him since I was very little, but until about 6 months ago we had never even been in contact.  I had always wondered what it would be like to talk to him and get to know him.  Our conversations through email and later texting and even a phone call stirred up many emotions for me.  You see my father had never met him either.  I'm not going to get into the details of that now because what really bothers me right now is that my brother is sick.  I have learned over the last few years that you can care a great deal about people whom you've never met in person.  Friday night my brother went into the hospital and was put in ICU.  It is now Monday and he has been moved out of ICU, but they still don't know what's wrong with him.  In the beginning they were pretty sure it was meningitis, now one doctor says he thinks it still is and the other doesn't.  I am a good 10-12 hours away (I don't know for sure obviously cause I've never been there), but I feel helpless and I wish there was something I could do, but I'm not even on the "Inform immediately" list because of our situation.
• Pregnancy guilt is high.  Although I'm finally starting to feel better (I love you Prilo.sec) and I'm getting spend more time with Lillian, I find that I still have a rather short fuse when it comes to her whining.  Some times I just give up the fight cause let's face it we need to pick our battles.  But then I wonder if I'm creating a monster by letting her think that some times a fit may work so she may as well try.  The binkies for example, I created a freaking monster and I'm regretting every second of it right now.  I hate the damn things and for some reason every day when she gets in the car to leave the sitter's she asks for them.  Of course while at the sitter's, even if she's offered them, she doesn't want them.  This is currently a battle that I have just quit fighting, I can't take the screaming after a long day at the office.  Am I enabling a brat though?  Honestly???  Is she going to whine forever to get what she wants or is this just a phase?
• My Etsy shop is draining me, financially and mentally.  Didn't know I had one? Check it out, Brandi's Boutique. I'm buying patterns for new things and then buying yarn and ribbon or whatever, but I end up having to make 2 of everything before I can post them because I have to give one away to get pictures of it.  And really what good are the pictures if you don't have an item to sell anymore?  And well my creativeness went out the window when my sleep did.  I have been creative enough to make a few single items, but by the time I get around to duplicating them, I can't remember how I made them and have to start the process all over again.  Oh how I wish I could just be home working on this stuff all day!

 

10 Weeks

Or 1/4 of the way there, hopefully a more if this little one is early like their big sister!

Not much in the way of stats since I forgot to weigh myself this morning.  I have noticed I seem to be getting some energy back, but the nausea is still there and my fuse seems to be shortening.  I'm wishing more than every that there was a pill I could give B, but alas there isn't, an honestly I don't think I could live with him for a day if he felt the way I do.

I had so much I was going to write about today, but I honestly can't remember what it was right now.  I busted my butt last night.  Between 5 and 8 I managed to make dinner, do the dishes I used, bake 2+ dozen cookies (the pre-made batter kind), change the sheets on our bed, eat, and give Lillian a bath.  Then this morning I got up at 4:30, put a load of wash in the washer, folded a load, made my and Lillian's lunch stuff for the day, put dishes away, and started putting some of my stuff away. 

I wish I could say most of this was motivated by new found energy, but it is not.  It's more motivated by my frustration and anger.  I'm not going to get into it though, I feel like I'm constantly negative and complaining lately and it's really not me.

So according to Baby.Center here's what's going on this week:

Though he's barely the size of a kumquat — a little over an inch or so long, crown to bottom — and weighs less than a quarter of an ounce, your baby has now completed the most critical portion of his development. This is the beginning of the so-called fetal period, a time when the tissues and organs in his body rapidly grow and mature.

He's swallowing fluid and kicking up a storm. Vital organs — including his kidneys, intestines, brain, and liver (now making red blood cells in place of the disappearing yolk sac) — are in place and starting to function, though they'll continue to develop throughout your pregnancy.

If you could take a peek inside your womb, you'd spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes (no more webbing) and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.
In other developments: Your baby's limbs can bend now. His hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over his heart, and his feet may be long enough to meet in front of his body. The outline of his spine is clearly visible through translucent skin, and spinal nerves are beginning to stretch out from his spinal cord. Your baby's forehead temporarily bulges with his developing brain and sits very high on his head, which measures half the length of his body. From crown to rump, he's about 1 1/4 inches long. In the coming weeks, your baby will again double in size — to nearly 3 inches.

Ok, if you click on the banner below I promise I'll stop complaining...

Who Does That???

Last night was a rough night in this mamma's house.  I was tired, stressed out and feeling like crap.  I also decided to torture myself a little by refusing to give Lillian her Binkies until it was time for her to actually go to bed.  See she's been in the habit of starting to ask for them the second we get in the car to leave the sitter's.  It kills me that even if the sitter offers them to her there, she won't take them, but at home OMG she flips out if you won't give them to her.  And frankly I'm just sick of seeing them in her mouth and I think it may be part of the reason she is having trouble with her "L"s.  Anyway, it was one fit after another last night.  Believe it or not, my rant, I mean post, today isn't even about that. 

 

What it is really about is one of B's friends.  I swear the guy has less common sense than B does!  We all know in general men have less common sense than most women.  Of course I may be slightly over reacting with these raging pregnant hormones and all, but a girl can only take so much from the guy who invited himself on our family vacation.

Last night something was up with our phones and when B's friend called he wasn't able to answer.  Maybe an hour passed and I went in to give Lillian a bath.  We weren't in there long and B comes in handing me the phone.  Now what do I need the phone for you ask, in case some one calls obviously.  B can't answer because he is outside entertaining his friend who just showed up, unannounced, even though we didn't answer the phone!  Apparently his girlfriend had to go pick up her boys and he didn't want to ride with her.  But, get this, where she had to pick them up is about a 20 minute drive from their house, our house is about a 15 minute drive in the same direction.  So basically he only had to ride with her another 5 minutes to pick them up!!! 

 

The guy just annoys the crap outta me.  He actually called at 6:30 on a Saturday morning and said "what are you doing up, you should be sleeping."  Umm if you think I should be sleeping then why the hell are you calling my house?!

 

OK, I really am done ranting, I swear!  On a good note, I have an OB appt today.  That long boring one where they ask you a million questions with words I've never heard before.

 

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