It’s been rough few weeks.
Our poor daughter is cutting teeth, looks like about six all at once and four of them are molars. She’s in pretty good spirits, the worst part is the diaper rash that she gets. I don’t know why she’s always been more prone to getting diaper rashes, and when she gets them she gets them bad. Her diaper rashes get so bad that she screams and tries to squirm and kick her way free when I change her. It’s hard on both of us.
Our son has been fighting some sort of bug for the past week. He was running a fever most of the week and was getting fever rashes. Just when I thought he was over it, he’s back running slight temperatures again and just not feeling well.
It’s always tough when both kids are not 100% and I find my son is quite an emotional wreck when he’s sick. All he wants to do is be held by me. Even his Dad isn’t good enough when he’s sick. Which makes really doing anything (such as cooking, or spending time with my daughter, working or keeping house) very difficult. Basically everything gets put on hold. And I feel guilty for not spending the time with my daughter that she needs.
I guess this too will pass, kids get sick.
A few weeks ago, I took the kids to town for a play date with a friend of mine who has a dayhome. We played in the park for a little while, then walked back to her house to play in the back yard.
After an hour & half of play time I gave my son the warnings that in 5 minutes it was time to leave, in 2 minutes & then time to leave.
Well he had a complete meltdown when it was time to go. I picked him up to try to sit with him on the bench and talk to him about leaving and he practically threw himself out of my arms. There was no trying to talk to him. So I asked if it was ok to leave my daughter so I could take my son to the van.
I walked back to the van carrying a screaming, wiggling 2 year old. I’m not sure if that was the best way to handle the situation but I felt that if I left him there while I walked back to pick up the van and drive it back, he would be getting his way. And I felt that it would be too dangerous to try to carry the one year old and drag the two year old back to the van. I guess I could have waited until the meltdown was over but I know that my friend really had to get lunch ready for all of her children and I didn’t want to throw off her schedule too much.
So anyway, by the time I actually got to the van, my pants had slid down and half my butt was hanging out! It is nearly impossible to hold on to a screaming & kicking 2 year old and pull up your pants at the same time. My pants are always falling down – I have a huge problem with pants staying on my non-existent hips – even when I’m not pregnant, but especially when I’m pregnant!
So there I was mooning the park (thankfully there was no one in the park) and trying unsuccessfully to deal with this meltdown. Which had gotten worse because my poor son thought that we were leaving his sister behind. He kept screaming for her, poor guy.
After I had finally gotten both children in carseats, my son had settled down enough to talk about the situation. I think it was equally exhausting for both of us.
Thankfully, these meltdowns are very few & far between – it is very out of character for him to behave that way.
Well I caved! I really didn’t want to wean my daughter from breastfeeding just to put her on a bottle, but I’ve been really wanting to wean her for the past little while.
It doesn’t make sense to me to wean a child from something, get them using something else, just to have to wean them from that later on. For example a breastfed child is usually weaned to a bottle or a sippy cup, and then weaned from that on to a regular cup.
Don’t get me wrong, Cali has taken a bottle when I am not available but up until now it has not been consistent. I introduced a regular glass at the same time she started eating solids and have also introduced a water bottle type container for when we are on the go. And she drinks fine from both.
However the other night when I was putting her to bed and offered her the breast, she bit me. Not just a little bite. She bit as hard as she could and pulled. I know I didn’t handle that situation as good as I should have. I screamed in pain, put her down and left the room. She bit so hard I was sure she drew blood – it felt like it anyway, but all she did was leave some really good teeth marks.
So she is now weaned to a bottle. I tried getting her to use the water type container for before naps & bedtime but she refused, so it’s a bottle. I’m not sure if she will really get attached to the bottle or not. She doen’t seem to really like or want the bottle too bad anyway. I might decide not to offer anything before sleeps – that’s actually probably the best thing to do.
I love working from home. I’m not sure if I’m going to “go back to work” when the kids are older & in school. I enjoy being my own boss and not being stuck in a 9 to 5 rut. I like not having to drive into town everyday but most importantly I love being home with my kids.
Working from home does have its challenges though. I started working too soon after the birth of our daughter. She wasn’t in a good sleep routine and I had a hard time keeping her in a schedule throughout the day. Because she wasn’t sleeping through the night I was exhausted and struggled to keep focused during my work.
Now that she is older, sleeping and in a good schedule, there are still a few challenges.
One of the issues is personal calls or visits during the times during the day that I have allotted for work. I find when I’m engrossed in a project and I get a personal call while I’m working, I’m very distracted and have a hard time focusing on the conversation. Often I’ve mistaken the caller’s identity, thinking it’s a work related call. As a work at home mom, the amount of time that I actually have to work is very limited. It’s challenging when I have people stop in for visits during my allotted work time. It’s hard to make up the lost time. I’ve decided that I’m not going to answer my personal phone during my alloted work time and as for visits – I’m still not sure how to deal with that.
Up until a few months ago I was struggling with my motherhood role. I felt that motherhood was about sacrificing all of yourself for your children. I had a hard time trying to keep up with all of the demands of my two children, my husband, my work & my home. I rarely took time for myself and I was starting to feel miserable. I was bitter towards my husband for not helping more and for not being home enough. And I felt like a failure for not being able to do it all, for not being superwoman! After all look at all those amazing mothers that seem to be able to do everything by themselves and succeed. Why couldn’t I? Why was I struggling?
Then I attended a conference on Motherhood and it helped me put my views of motherhood and parenting into perspective. First of all I realized that I CHOOSE to marry my husband, I CHOOSE to have children. So whenever I start to feel bitterness towards with my husband or frustrated about the crazy day I’m having with my children, I remind myself that these are choices I made, I can’t change who they are or what they do but I can change how I feel and how I react to them.
I was also given some very valuable tools at the conference to help me prioritize and organize my life. One of the things I learned was that I can’t be a good mother or wife if I don’t take care of me. I needed to focus on what was missing in my life for my well-being. All it took was changing a few small things and making a commitment to myself to focus on my needs as well. I was so used to putting my needs at the bottom of the list.
These few small changes made such an impact on my everyday life, it was truly amazing. I decided that I needed to make a commitment to my faith, after all God has always been there for me and has never given up on me, there’s no reason for me to put him aside like I had been doing just because I was a “busy” mom. I also started exercising, something I haven’t done in years.
All it took was a few small changes in my attitude and routine and my life was getting better and easier. I could cope better with issues and my relationships with my husband & my children were improving. I can’t wait to complete the entire workbook – things will just keep getting better & better!