Month: January 2014

Ramblings of the Sleep Deprived

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Dear people who sleep on a regular basis,

This is not a post for you…you may be very confused at times while reading, feel free to ask new parents what’s up…maybe just give them a coffee first.  To give you a clear picture I used to be a person who enjoyed sleeping in on the weekends.  I even recall times when I was in high school falling asleep after school only to be told it was dinner time. I remember every Monday morning when my high school French teacher would demand what I did over the weekend, the only French phrase I still remember to this day is “J’dormi dans”.   Little did I know that these were the days of good solid sleep.  Sleep where you actually feel rested, sleep where you wake up and think, wow, I feel great.  Sleep where you don’t wake up panicked because of all of the screaming or panicked because it is too quiet. Sleep where you don’t wake up and go eff it’s already 6:00 am.  Sleep where you wake up with a bed full of small children.

Not to get ahead of myself here,  in July of 2008 my husband and I started thinking about having petites and like all people venturing out there into thinking about kids its exciting and terrifying and just something so fun to think about and your thinking yeah babies don’t sleep but that doesn’t last forever right?  Honestly, I didn’t really think about the lack of sleep I was think about all those cute little onesies and baby names.  Fast forward to July 2009.

Our beautiful petite has arrived and her first night on the outside is spent crying and very awake.  My hubby walks her for hours through the hospital wing (being careful not to pass the line on the floor that sounds the alarms and lockdown).  The nurses kindly assured us this happens all the time they have their little nights and days mixed up etc. This is the part where you will recognize the foreshadowing.  The petite did not sleep through the night until she was perhaps 2 and a half years old.  My hubby and I would walk around like zombies, we learned very quickly to drink lots of caffeine try not to think about how tired we were and never, NEVER engage in conversations with other parents about how their child was sleeping.  On the occasion where we did have conversations about sleep with those horrible gloating “oh my brand new baby sleeps through the night and has been a perfect sleeper since they day they were born” type of parents; we would both leave feeling like they were basically full of shit or gloating because when their darling little Rip Van Winkle had something to make up for…slow to sit up, colic, general mal content…whatever.  When our petite finally started sleeping through the night a funny thing happened, I was so used to the wake ups that I wasn’t able to sleep through the night and would find myself bending over her cherub little face feeling for breath.  All the while hoping I wouldn’t step on that squeaky floor board on my way to the door.

So I ask you what does any logical person in my place do once their petite finally and I mean finally starts sleeping through the nigh?  Pretty obvious right?  You start to think about having another petite. Jump ahead… now we are preggo and as you probably know, have heard about, or really can relate, pregnant people don’t sleep well at all.  Even more so people lucky enough to sleep in the same bed with them, even on one of those mattresses where you can bowl and drink at the same time, a pregnant woman is no match for that, you see there are sound effects, moaning, under the breath swearing, sometimes in my case team lifting situations happening (we have an ungodly high bed, literally it’s almost 3.5 feet off the ground), which could sometimes result in a giggle followed by a swearing fit.  So you know sleep is already a totally wishful thing.  Now it is getting close to petite #2 arriving and petite #1 starts waking up in the middle of the night again!  WTF.  You might be thinking well she just said she is writhing around in bed, getting lifted to and fro, etc., she’s already awake – well no, because as people with kids know it never ever happens at the same time.

Baby #2 arrives and this little petite can sleep, she is the cutest when she sleeps, little pouty lips, sighs all of it.  She sleeps so well we are shocked, so well we have to wake her to eat.  So well, in fact, that we refuse to answer the question are you getting much sleep with any sort of real answer, “oh yeah you know”, “she’s great”, “wow, I’m so tired”, all the while thinking HOLY SHIT she sleeps so well don’t tell anyone we’ll jinx it.  Then after a while you kind of have to embrace it, this petite is amazing.  It must be comeuppance since her sister slept so shitty for 2.5 years.

We got used to our good little sleeper, the big sis got sorted out and was once again sleeping through the night and we were rested, like well rested, functioning with only moderate coffee intake.  Ironically enough my hubby and I spent the night in a fancy hotel sans the petites and we kept waking up throughout the night hearing phantom cries – it was not a haunted hotel – it was a Fairmont.

What I will say is that life is short, sleep is great, and you need it, people who tell you to sleep while you’re re pregnant before the baby comes need to know that’s not helpful.  People who knowingly gloat about their good sleeper to a sleep deprived parent are just plain rude.  But hopefully like all things with petites the sleep will return and in the meantime, map out the nearest Starbucks and get a really great concealer to hide the bags under your eyes.  By the by, I am still in search of a great concealer for those pesky under eye dark circles, if you use a great concealer let me know what it is in the comment section.  The one I use is no match for my eye rubbing come 11 am when I am wishing I could curl up somewhere and take a nap.

I laugh because when I started writing this my little one was an awesome sleeper and now, well, she is starting to get her first tooth, it’s not here yet, but it is coming.  For those of you not pregnant or without kids, or with kids who sleep take a nap and bask in the pure bliss of sleep…just don’t tell any of us sleep deprived people.

-Erin

 

 

Bravest Petite I Know

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As part of my petites ongoing testing to get her medications sorted out and the seizures to stop she has to have the occasional blood draw.  Since she is four it is pretty hard for her to really understand this process fully especially since she isn’t aware that she has epilepsy.  She is aware that she doesn’t feel well all the time, but not the specifics.  Well, she had to have a blood draw and when I picked her up from her preschool I told her we were going to go to the doctor and that she would be getting a shot.  She burst into tears and yelled that she didn’t want to get a pokey poke.  That it would hurt and that she was scared.  All while this is happening I usually forget, until later, how incredibly lucky I am that she can articulate all of her feelings about this even if sometimes it’s done by yelling on the side of the street. Once we got to the hospital she told me she was scared and didn’t want to go.  We talked about being brave and what that means…that sometimes we have to do things even when they are scary and we aren’t feeling brave.  My petite took a deep breath and said she was starting to feel braver.  When it was her turn they called her name and she got right up and walked to the nurse and introduced herself.  She saw the sticker basket and chose her two stickers and put them on the counter saying that they were for when she was done.  She hopped into the chair and held out her arm.  The nurse showed her the tourniquet and how it made her veins come out and the petite felt her veins.  This is when she started to get a little nervous…she took a deep breath and watched the nurse draw her blood.  She didn’t even cry.  When she was done she hopped down and thanked the nurse for taking her blood grabbed her stickers and walked out. photo Sometimes I forget she is only four years old.  I forget how articulate she is and can tell you how she feels even when she is really mad and really frustrated.  But she is still four, she is still in so many ways my baby girl.  It is in moments like this that I am astounded by how brave she is.  How polite she is to thank the woman who just drew her blood.  She is so much braver than I was.  In fact, there is a story about when I was 8 years old and getting some teeth pulled and I was terrified.  I got to the oral surgeons office and said I needed to go to the bathroom and promptly barricaded myself in the bathroom.  I think it must have been that smell, you know the dentist smell I’m talking about?  There was no amount of talking that was going to get me out, no bribery to be had, and no demands to be met.  I was content to live the remainder of my days in a bathroom at the oral surgeons.  Unfortunately for me, they had a schedule to keep and a key. I don’t know if bravery skipped a generation, but my petite is the bravest girl I know.

Raising the Petite Stags: Thoughts on Being a Working Mom and Stay at Home Mom

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It all started a little over 4 years ago.  My first petite was born in July of 2009. Being a teacher I had the summer off and was able to roll right into maternity leave and then FMLA leave…it was amazing, I was able to stay home with my baby until she was 5 months old.  During those first five months I tried my hand at what being a stay at home mom meant to me.  I gardened and grew fresh foods that I then would puree into baby food or can.  We attended mommy and baby story time at the library.  We went to parks, on long walks, to museums.  We had playdates with other mommies and babies.  It was amazing.  Then came the day that I had to go back to work.  The week before involved a lot of crying, pumping milk, more crying, not fitting exactly into my work clothes, which led to more crying and just generally fretting.  It was during this time that I began the arduous process of convincing myself that I wanted to go back to work, even needed to go back to work to be around other adults, to be with my students.

What I know now, that I didn’t want to admit then, was that I was lying to myself.  Deep down I knew it, I knew it as I sat in the parking lot of the school where I worked and cried for 20 minutes before I went in.  Cried every time I pumped at work the first few weeks.  And I had it pretty good, I was only working part-time only three days a week.

Eventually it got better.  I was able to be content at work and make the most of the time I had with the petite when I was at home.  I tried to keep the same schedule even going to mommy and baby story time and playdates.  As I moved through the year I found myself counting days till holidays and then till summer break.  We had made it, I was able to be a stay at home mom for about 2 months.

The following year when my petite was thirteen months old I returned to work full-time.  We found a childcare that we loved, with a lady who we were certain would love our petite while we were away.  It was still hard to drive off to work each day, but seeing how much she loved her new caregiver it was a lot easier to do, plus she loved playing with her new friends.  I was still plagued with mommy guilt, guilt about being tired sometimes when I picked her up, you see she was a horrible sleeper, waking up 4-5 times at night.  I felt guilty about that time in the middle of the night where I was miffed about having to get up to go function at work.  I felt guilty about not going to mommy and baby story time or playdates.  Mainly about missing things, again I tried to convince myself (and believe it) that even if she had a new milestone while I was at work, it would still be new when I saw it after work.

During this time another thing happened that I wasn’t really expecting.  I began to resent moms who were able to stay at home with their kids.  Especially those moms who would vent about their day at home with the kids on social media.  I was jealous, I would have given anything to stay at home, but it just wasn’t feasible for our family at the time.  I was doing what I had to do for our family and although I didn’t want to be working it was the situation.  I’m also embarrassed to say it but at times thought what do stay at home moms do all day?  I have to do all that other stuff when I get home or on the weekends…WTF.  What could they possibly fill their days with?  Oh dear.  Right?  Jealous.

When I would get home I ran around like a crazy person trying to get it all done and provide experiences as if I didn’t have to work.  Like Blueberry Pickingblueberry picking on the way home, or stopping at parks, setting up ice cream dates after work, trying to do cooking projects with a toddler like making homemade noodles after working all day.  Sometimes a success, sometimes yikes.

Well let’s fast forward a bit it’s now June 2013 and our sweet petite is a big sister.  Both my girls are just perfect…life couldn’t be better. Then came the discussion about what was going to happen when it was time to go back to work.  We lined up the same amazing childcare that we had for our first petite.  I sorted out with the HR department when I would come back to work, just after the Thanksgiving holiday.  Then came the biggest blessing of my life.  As my handsome hubby and I sat down and looked at the budget (a very scary word I have avoided for most of my adult life), we came to the amazing discovery that I did not have to go back to work.  WHAT?!?

Again something I didn’t expect happened.  I hesitated to jump up and down and scream yes please!  I pondered about my students, what it would look like now to stay at home, how it wasn’t really fair that I didn’t get to stay home with the first petite.  How I really do love my job.  All of these things came into my mind until I realized what I was doing.  I was now a full believer of what I told myself four years before. After making the choice to stay at home with my girlies I couldn’t be happier, I try not to bitch and moan if my day happens to be a shit show, especially to people who don’t have the privilege to stay at home with their petites.  But more than anything I now fully understand what stay at home moms do all day.  They work really hard.  I honestly don’t really know how I worked full-time with a little one either.  What I do know is that moms who work full-time, part-time or stay at home all work really hard and there is really no sense in sitting around comparing and trying to figure out who works harder than the other.  When we could spend that time thinking about how to support each other in our common job of raising petites.

Best Wishes,

Erin

Like I said...crazy person

Like I said…crazy person