Raw edges

I've been feeling very raw lately.

Not rough around the edges, but raw. As if my nerves are exposed.

Simple little things make me well up and almost cry. Like a little boy who couldn't find his Gramma at the library the other day.

Or the sound of a baby crying.

Mostly, though, it's been my little owlet. All of his discoveries. The looks on his oh-so expressive face. The way he has suddenly begun patting us on the back when he hugs us with the sweetest little tap-tap-tap.

What IS this? Sleep deprivation? Worry over my ailing Grandfather? Sadness mixed with joy at my little guy who is growing up right in front of my eyes?

I honestly don't know. I've always been a bit of a weepy-Nelly, but this just seems over the top.

Anger

A while back, like when the owlet was just a wee little thing, instead of the almost 2 year old he is now, I realized that I do not do well on minimal sleep.

I also realized that when I don't get enough sleep, or am awoken in the middle of the night, or early in the morning, I become a very, very terrible person.

The kind of person who, albeit briefly, understands why some people get to the point of hurting their children. It needs to be said, however, that in my fully awake, caffeinated, rational mind, I would NEVER dream of hurting my child, and that the very thought makes me sick. HOWEVER. There are times, like at 3am, when the owlet has flopped around for an hour and a half and refused to go back to sleep, both in his crib and in bed with me, that I have come close to losing it.

On more than one occasion, I have actually lost it. Although I have never struck my child. And I never will.

Yes, I have screamed, and yelled. I even said the title of that book. (You know the one.)

And the following morning, after I looked at my little sleeping guy, all peaceful and breathing deeply, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of love, and of sadness and anger at myself. No one deserves to be yelled at like that. Yes, he's 16 months, and no, he won't remember it. But I will.

The day after this happened most recently, I apologized to him. I told him that I was sorry I yelled at him. I explained to him, even though he couldn't understand, that Mommy does not do well on very little sleep. I told him that I don't ever want him to be afraid of me. That I don't want him to think that anger is the way to solve problems. Because it's not.

But we inch ever closer to the Terrible Two's. To the days of wanting to rip my hair out. To the days where I am going to be tired of telling him "the dog is not for hitting." "We don't throw our cup at the tv." Where it will be easier to smack his hand after he slaps me in the face instead of explaining to him that hitting hurts and is not ok and sitting him on the floor.

Which reminds me. Why do people hit kids after they hit someone to tell them that hitting is wrong? I never understood it. And maybe, if nothing else, that will be the reminder in the back of my mind to not smack his hand after he smacks me.

Because I want him to go into life being able to express himself in healthy ways. I've been trying to model healthy expression of feelings to him. I say things to him like "I know you're frustrated, but we don't throw our toys."

But its hard to remember this at 3am. It's even harder to remember it when he's smacked me in the face a bunch of times, and fussed for no reason.

What's not hard to remember though, is that this little guy is my world. The center of my universe. Temper tantrums and all, and I love him no matter what. Face smacking and all.

Getting the angries out

I work as a therapist with kids and I talk to them a lot of times about healthy ways that they can get their anger out, like hitting pillows or wiggling their little bodies around. I tell them about the dangers of holding their anger in, that if they don't let it out in good ways they will explode like a volcano.

Friends, I feel like a volcano tonight. There are some rumblings and any day now some molten hot lava will come spewing out and will burn everyone within a 10 mile radius. Or something.

But seriously. The danger of feeling bunt out and having my support system be either a. asleep or b. working, means that when it all gets to be too much, I just want to explode.

So if I do explode, who do I take it out on? Certainly not the owlet. Not the man asleep next to me. Maybe the dog. (sorry, Patronus.) Really, I take it out on no one. Instead it festers. Little things turn into enormous things. Like the sound of the dogs nails click-click-clickibg on the hardwood floor after we just got the owlet down for the night. Like the fact that he is now up, because of the incessant clicking. Like the fact that as much as I want to sleep, or read and relax before bed, I will be up, holding the owlet 'til he's deep enough asleep to put back down. Or the fact that the hubs is napping before work. This last thing shouldn't bother me but it does. Because, hello? Festering volcano.

When I have moments/days/weeks like this, I try to find my own things to help calm the angries. Like blogging. Watching the owlet sleep. Listening to the owlet laugh. It pours a little bit of cold water on the flames. Doesn't quite put it out, of course, but it helps.

At least until the next night.

Mom FAIL

I feel like a failure today. I'm sure its the first of many times that I'll feel like I've failed my child, but as its the first, it feels pretty stinkin' bad. My owlet has been awake for close to 4 straight hours tonight. This after almost zero naps today. All of his "naps" were more like nap-lettes. Tiny little 20 minute things that couldn't even be called catnaps. I don't know what's going on with him, which is another reason I feel like a failure. He might be teething. He might be fighting off a cold. He might be going through a growth spurt. I have no idea. All I know is that in 4 hours I have not been able to soothe him to sleep. I have done everything. I've fed him, changed him, shushed him, rocked him, sung to him, "flipped" him, completely undressed him and tried to do skin to skin, let him suck on my finger, let him suck on a pacifier. The hubs took him for a long ride in the car, then put him on top of the dryer in his car seat to rock him to sleep, I guess. He walked him around the house rocking him and shushing him. And what put him to sleep? That last little thing.

I'm not going to lie. I want to be the one to meet my owlet's every need. Is it great that the hubs finally got him to sleep? Of course. Do I feel like it should have been me to finally lull my precious one to sleep? You betcha. I feel like I failed my son. I couldn't do whatever it was that he needed done. Some tiny little thing, out of all the things we did tonight, and he's finally asleep. Although he's been "finally asleep" several times tonight, all of which lasted about 10 minutes.

I think part of my frustration comes from worry. Worry that something's wrong with Alex. Worry that as a first time mom, I'm going to mess something up. Worry about how I'm supposed to do this tomorrow night when the hubs is back to work and I'm here by myself with a screaming baby.

I learned tonight that I cannot just let him cry it out. The sound of him screaming from his crib makes me sick to my stomach. I want to do everything I can to make him stop, to soothe him.

Except, apparently, sometimes, there's nothing I can do.

the monster within

I have a problem. I think I am two people. One normal, typical mom, and one monster. This monster of a person rears her ugly head sometime between midnight an 4am. It usually happens when Alex has only let me sleep for an hour (or less) since his last feeding. Sometimes this crazy monster person shows up several times in a night, like last night. This horrible person showed up at like 1:30, and again at 4:30, and then at 6:45. Alex starts crying in his pack-n-play and I can't believe he's crying already, even though I just finished feeding him (or so it feels like). So I let him cry it out for a few minutes, thinking that maybe it's just gas, so angry and frustrated at the fact that he's crying. again. already.

It's not gas, of course, he is hungry. Again. And I don't want him to keep crying, I want to meet his needs, but, at the same time, I am. So. Tired. And I don't want to wake the hubs up before it's his turn to deal with the little one. So I get up, grumbling, frustrated and ready to pull my hair out. Who the heck is this person? How could I not want to tend to my little one's needs? How could I wish for just a few more minutes of sleep, when my little guy is hungry and needs food? Every night when I put him down to sleep, I listen to him breathe because I'm so afraid of that terrible "S" thing that I can't even write, and here I am, wishing that he would just go to sleep already. Well, what if he fell asleep and never woke up? This thought comes barreling into my mind as I'm slowly getting up to get him, which guess what? Makes me feel even more terrible.

So I sit there, half asleep watching bad television so that I can try to keep myself awake. (By the way, Saved By the Bell is on really early in the morning if you're up and nursing and need something mindless to watch.) I kick myself for getting mad that this tiny little person who is so dependent on me for his every need actually needs me, and that it interrupted my sleep. I worry about how I am ever going to manage going back to work, since we typically stay in bed until about 10:00, although a lot of that isn't me sleeping, it's me waiting for him to fall asleep.

And, eventually, he makes his little contented sigh, pulls off and falls blissfully asleep. That is, until I go to move him, of course, and then the whole cycle starts again.