This weekend was a rough one on the baby sleep front. If you’ve read anything I’ve written lately (or read between the lines of what I haven’t had the energy to write), then you know we are in one of “those” phases of child rearing that feel extra hard.
Saturday night I had plans with friends at 7:30. The baby goes to bed at 7 (that’s the goal anyway), so this was somewhat ambitious. But I thought we could make it work. Of course, rather than fall asleep nursing like she will do on lucky occasions, she finished eating and was wired. So I decided to lay her down awake, since that’s the goal, and since it has been working pretty well at nap times. I stood outside the door of the room for a few minutes to make sure she would settle in.
But in her usual over-ambitious attempt to calm herself, she stuck her fingers in her mouth and gagged herself. My husband and I rushed back in and scooped her up to make sure she didn’t choke. She seemed fine, so I left her with my very capable husband and headed for the door, just in time to catch my ride.
At which point she threw up everything that she had just eaten. Into her bed. And her pajamas. And all over my husband.
SIGH.
So I helped change pajamas and sheets and dug out a new sleep sack and heated up a bottle and made escape attempt number two.
Which worked. My much-more-patient husband put her to bed and I had a wonderful, much-needed dinner with dear friends.
And the baby, who had slept through the night for the two previous nights, woke up when I went to crawl in bed at midnight. And stayed up until 1:30 a.m., something she hasn’t done for a long time. And then got up before 5 a.m.
And then decided to get up every couple of hours all night the next night as well, just to make her point.
Have I said SIGH yet? SIGH.
Okay so back to my point. During my friend dinner, we were talking about my situation, and parenting, and drowning, and life, and plans. At one point in the conversation, my friend asked if there was a part of the day I looked forward to every day.
And I had to think. I actually had to think about it.
(Face palm)
So I’m not making excuses or anything here. There are moments that are so overwhelming that I can’t see out of this hole I’m in. I think five months of exhaustion, three years of being pregnant or nursing, hormones, and possibly a touch of seasonal or postpartum depression are adding weight to an already heavy load.
And sometimes the stress feels so big that it’s all I can see. And when I do write, it’s all I can think to write about. And I don’t like that, because it doesn’t feel good to write (or live) all in the negative. I’d much rather create and share something positive. But I also want this to be a place where I share the real, authentic moments of parenting, and you can’t do that without telling the truth about the darkness.
So I do. But I think it’s also worth saying, that just because sometimes the darkness is all I see doesn’t mean it’s all darkness. Sure there have been a lot of moments lately that feel like I can’t keep my head above water. But then suddenly I find a foothold and come up for air and realize that the water I was drowning in is this beautiful bay of crystal blue water with white sand beaches and dolphins and sunshine and palm treas.
I got so caught up in trying to keep my head above water that I didn’t (couldn’t) notice that I was swimming in paradise.
I thought back to my conversation with my friends and the question, what do I look forward to each day, and I had to smack myself and laugh. Every day I get to watch my toddler learn new words. Right now she has learned how to add “peas” (please) to her requests, which is about the most adorable thing ever and she pretty much gets whatever she wants when she says it. (Hey, it is the magic word.) I get to listen to her sweet little voice sing and see her mischievous smile when she sneaks up on me and tickles me. I get to watch her sit and pour through books and “read” them to herself. I get to sit and build legos with her.
I get to watch my baby smile. I get to hear her laugh because she is so ticklish that even changing her clothes makes her laugh. I get to watch her trying to sit up and trying to pull her knees up under her and soon I’ll get to see her succeed at all of these big brave things she is trying. I get to watch her eyes get heavy and I get to nurse her when she is hungry and hold her when she cries.
I get to pick the oldest up from school every day. I get to see what she’s working on in school, I get to help her make Valentines for her classmates and celebrate with her when she earns a certificate for “compassion”. I get to hear her reading harder books every day. I get to see her sisters’ faces light up when she walks in the room.
I get to be there when they don’t feel good and need extra love. I get to be there when they feel amazing and brave and full of life. I get to be there for it all.
The hard days are worth writing about because they are real. But so are all the other moments. There’s not just one thing I look forward to every day because my day is filled with beautiful moments, both good and bad, with the people I love most in the world.
Even on the days where swimming is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I’m still swimming in paradise.