Pity Party

Warning: This post contains a little bit of a pity party... I usually try to keep this blog pretty positive but let's be honest. Motherhood can't always be rainbows and sunshine!

Last night was ROUGH! I was up to party with Ayden probably 8 times or so. I lost count but it was definitely too much!

When we woke up, we were having our morning snuggle time and he spit up the king of spit ups ALL OVER ME. It was on my face, in my hair, all down my back and smelled super sour. To top it off, today wasn't a hair washing day and we all know how I feel about showers these days. Instead of having another 30-40 minutes of productivity or sleep or what have you, I had to waste precious time washing and fixing my hair.

His Royal Cuteness just before the alleged spit up incident...

Once I finished getting ready, Ayden was ready to go down for his morning nap. He went down pretty easily and I was crossing my fingers for another hour long nap like yesterday; and then he woke up 5 minutes later. I tried getting him to to back to sleep with the "shush pat" and pick up/put down, which usually work, but he wasn't having it. I broke down and nursed him back to sleep, waited until he was sleeping deeply and moved him to his crib. He was up for good 15 minutes later. He was happy, though, so the only concern I had about it was a missed chance for my own nap.

We went to story time and Ayden did great! He smiled and enjoyed all the songs. I was so glad we made it! He fell asleep on the way home so when we walked in the door I looked at the clock and saw that I had an hour before I had to go teach dance. Perfect time for a nap!

I curled up on the couch and then all the craziness started! First, Polly declared that it was snuggle time and started kneading on me and head butting me. Very sweet but hard to sleep through. Then Maverick decided to sniff sleeping Ayden and then howled at me when I very sternly whispered for him to stop. Since he appeared to be in a howling mood, I got up and put him in his crate. That's when he decided to chew on his bone, which is always loud, so I went and took it from him and laid back down. When I just started to drift off, I got a text on my phone and Mav started whining. At this point I was about to pull my hair out! Can't a tired mama get a break?!? I turned my phone off and carried Ayden, still in his carseat, upstairs so I could get in bed and after sleeping through all of the shenanigans downstairs, the tiny squeak of our bedroom door opening woke him up. Noooo!!!

Lucky for me, he was still sleepy so we snuggled up together and I nursed him to sleep on our bed. I got a half hour of sleep in before I had to get up and go teach. We both would have kept sleeping if we could have!

Ayden has changed so much in the past month since I taught my last dance class. He sat up and played the whole time and was totally into watching my students dance. He'd even smile at them as they tapped by him, it was so cute! Here is a clip of him exploring one of my tap shoes:

When we left the studio, it was in the middle of a much needed downpour but it reminded me again of how annoyed I was to have to wash/fix my hair today since the rain made it extra beautiful.

I had vented to poor David all day so he knew I needed a break. I had just told him last night that I missed getting take out. I don't miss the food but I do miss getting to be lazy. No cooking and no dishes. Him taking that task off of my plate definitely put some positive back in my day :).

After dinner, we went to my parents' house to visit with them and my uncle's family and that was pretty great too. While we were there, we were listening to music and I was clapping to the beat for Ayden and he was smiling and laughing so much! He has become super interested in clapping so I bet that'll be one of his first "tricks." As we left we saw the most beautiful sunset in the rear view mirror and I had moved past my pity party and was focusing on the fact that tomorrow is a new day.

Now that it is all in hind sight, I still think it was a relatively rotten day but I also know that if I had gone into it with a better night's sleep the night before, it would have played out differently. I also know there are mamas out there who are dealing with much much worse! Even so, with more sleep, I would have had the energy to try a little harder to get Ayden to take a decent morning nap or wouldn't have been so desperate for a nap of my own and could have gotten at least one thing accomplished while Ayden slept. One consistency that keeps popping up is the fact that my ability to function relies greatly on how rested I am. Luckily these days I'm rested more than not but I think that's what makes sleepy days that much harder now. I have had a taste of the me I can be with decent sleep (to me decent is 3-4 hour stretches. I can only imagine who I could be on 5 or more...) so going back to the me that walks in circles all day and feels like a floating head makes it that much more frustrating.

It's pretty well known in our house now that if we don't sleep at night, nothing more than caring for Ayden should be expected from me the next day. If I try, the house just seems even more messy because there are half completed projects strewn about everywhere.

Side note: Adding to the awesomeness that was today is the fact that I have another plugged duct. Arg! I'm taking my lecithin, massaging it often and drinking lots of water so let's hope I don't end up with mastitis again! Ha, watch Ayden sleep like a rock star tonight when I would actually benefit from partying with him a lot.

The lesson to be learned here is that some days are not going to run smoothly and this does not mean that I'm failing in some way. And the fact that I acknowledge that it was all a little miserable does not take away from the fact that I LOVE being a mommy or mean I'd rather be anywhere else or doing anything else.  It just means we had a crumby day and that is all.  As I said before, tomorrow is a new day and I shall go into it with the attitude that it WILL be a better day. After all, we can't control what happens to us but we can control how we react to it.

~Sarah