People That Tell Me Who I Am

My parents, siblings and close friends. When I miss people, it's not just their presence, their smiles and sense of humor, but the way my life is and the way I am when they're around. When I visit with friends and family, I feel more complete. I remember some piece of who I am that I otherwise forget. It's not that they tell me who I should be, though some do try. It's that they remind me of the different facets of who I am.

I had a whole post in my head for this at one point, then was interrupted with Mom Duties. But you know what, I like short posts and this works. I miss my village; The End

Naps for Baby are tricky because he's teething (sleeps poorly) and his naps are transitioning from 3 to 2. He never takes a long nap, either, so if he misses one he just has to go to bed early (like 6:30pm early). When I get him to bed early on those days, he wakes up after 6:30am, which is good. When I don't... especially if it's been too long between last nap and bed time, then he gets night terrors (which are heart breaking) AND wakes up between 5 and 5:30am. That's rough on both of us, so I try really hard to get him to bed on time or at least not too far from it. Didn't happen last night, but I was closer tonight (though still probably too late). He had a little mini nightmare before I put him down for the night... I'm hoping that is not a sign of things to come and maybe that's all the night terror he's going to have.


Tonight, I'm hoping I can get some food ready for tomorrow and have a shower before I need to be in bed. I've got about an hour left and won't be able to shower until roughly my bed time because it's easiest/best to do right after feeding Baby and he probably won't eat again until my bed time. I'm listening to a favorite movie while I get things done. Today feels better than last in a few ways so far. I've already gotten more done AND gotten Baby to bed a little closer to when he needed it. So... here's hoping.

Still getting used to both not having alone time and also when I do. I always have a To Do list. If I'm not too tired after Baby's asleep, I try to get things done in order of descending priority. Often, I forget most of them or get busy and run out of time (it's one of those jobs where there are a lot of easy to forget/not see tasks). Tonight, I put laundry in the dryer (finally) and paid a bill. If I'm lucky, I can get a shower in before bed. Hopefully, I won't have to rush out halfway through my shower to rock him back to sleep again.

Fortunately, a friend is staying over for a few days and insisted on doing the dishes because the baby was having a rough day and needed to be held almost constantly. I love the extra baby time, but it means the dishes pile up and that gets stressful.

I feel lonely tonight. I'm really close to maybe 4 adult people (and Baby). If they are being distant or are otherwise engaged, I feel like I have no one to connect to. If the 2 I'm closest to are mad at me, I feel like there's something Wrong with me and I'm not good enough for them. I often feel like they get mad at me for things I don't understand or that are unfair.

I know I'm also extra sensitive because of sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, barely keeping up with my caloric/vitamin needs and being new at parenting. I'm not Good at being a mom yet and that's hard on the ego. Especially when it feels like I could be if I just planned better (which is a thing I have been pretty great at in the past, so that's painful, too). One nice thing, though, is it's getting easier in some ways and I'm starting to realize I'm doing a pretty decent job, after all.

Plus, I'm getting used to the fact that nobody will ever agree with 100% of what I'm doing and 100% of what I'm doing will be Wrong at some point to someone. I just have to do my best and let everything else go. I wouldn't have been as quick to be ok with this if I had started parenting a decade ago. There are perks to being an older mom.

I'm trying to be more ok being alone more and less connected to people. I don't like that when people hurt my feelings and I feel they are being unjust there's this pressure to conform to what they want/need so I can go back to being super close to someone again. Maybe I just need to be more okay with not being super close to people all the time. Maybe if I am more okay by myself I won't need that so much and I can not only argue for myself better, but because I'd be less desperate, maybe it'd work out better for all of us. That's what I'm going to focus on tonight.

It's nice to remember how beautiful alone time can be. It's nice when everyone else is in bed at night. The world feels soft and cozy and the lights are lovely. Goodnight, blog friends.

Bedtime was half an hour ago

And I so desperately needed to get to bed on time or early tonight. Instead, I'm having a bit of a hard night. I haven't been eating often enough (possibly not enough in general). The baby is starting to need solid foods more often now so I need to work that into the schedule, which already feels like a lot. It seems as soon as I get us out and do something he can enjoy, he's ready to eat and fall back to sleep again. And if I miss that (sleepiness) window by too much he's over tired and won't sleep well the rest of the night, then wakes up at 4am the next day, etc. It's just not worth letting him miss his nap window by too much.

And now my mom is not speaking to me because she's afraid of how I'm feeding him solids. I've researched this method and it has proven no more likely for the babies doing it to choke. In fact, they may be less likely to after 3 months and we're 2 months in! She thinks she's Making a Point by threatening to disown me. Intellectually, I realize that she's Really Scared and wants me to know how scared she is. Viscerally, it's just another way she's telling me she won't have anything to do with me if I don't do things her way. Whether it's because she's scared or mad, it doesn't matter because the message is the same. I already can't ask her for help or even just vent about spousal things or talk to her about baby things because she dislikes Husband and everything I'm doing with the baby she's sure is Wrong and most of it she's sure will kill him. Hence, the disowning thing.

It's time for me to just go to bed. Goodnight, folks. Here's hoping I can catch at least one nap with the baby tomorrow... Gods know I need it...

It's the future!

I'm about 12 years older. I have a baby. I was a programmer for a while. The more I got to design and program the more I loved the job. The more I had to use crappy, poorly-documented code and broken builds the more I hated it. Overall, I'd do it again in a heartbeat but not until the baby is older. I have the option to stay home with him indefinitely and, although it is exhausting work, I love every minute of it. I used to think people just said that so they didn't feel bad about how hard it is, but it's totally true. I love it. What can I say, I'm a sucker for hard work and, now, babies. Or at least mine.

Speaking of the new gig, that's part of why I haven't started writing again and part of why I need this. I have just gotten to where I now have 1-3 hours without the baby (or anyone else, usually) at night. It can be a time of reflection and writing helps me make the most of that, so here I am.

When my son was born, I lost my false sense of security. You know, the feeling like bad things don't just happen to us out of the blue. It's an important thing to have and it's really hard to live without, though it is untrue and undeserved. Bad things happen out of the blue all the time to perfectly wonderful people. For a few months there, my OCD went a bit overboard: regaling me with all the horrible things that, because I could imagine them, necessarily must be bound to happen to my new baby, myself and/or my husband. That if I left my baby for any reason, Terrible Things that only I could have prevented were going to happen to him. Fortunately, I knew this wasn't True and I still got breaks for things like showering, using the bathroom and sometimes to eat without the baby on me. The baby parts were beautiful and the scary brain parts were a special kind of hell that I'm glad only lasted a couple months. It was exhausting. As if having a new baby isn't exhausting enough. I'm sure a lot of the heightened OCD was just sleep deprivation. I still don't sleep much, but enough to be much more functional and enough to keep my OCD back to very functional mostly-non-existent levels again. Well, it's nearly my new much-earlier bedtime and if I don't observe it I will be One Tired Mama. And that makes for a boring mama. My baby deserves better than that. Plus, I've got a fairly solid start on this blogging thing again. I hope I can reconnect with some old friends around here and maybe make some new ones. :)