Mommy Meltdown

"No one could feel all that at one time. They'd go insane." Ahh, Ron Weasley. He speaks the truth there.

I had a bit of a meltdown earlier today. I've been feeling a touch under the weather and a touch more frustrated at the owlet's temper tantrums and increasing realization that throwing said tantrum will eventually get him what he wants. Or, not what we wants really, but will get him attention.

But how am I supposed to ignore this screaming, writhing, almost toddler on the floor/pulling on my leg/screaming in my ear?

Anyway. I was feeling tired, overwhelmed, frustrated and under the weather and then suddenly:

WHAM-O. Full. On. Mommy, Meltdown.

After telling the hubs that I was feeling frustrated at some silly little thing he did (sighing when I asked him to do something), I lost it. I told him that I was mad at myself for feeling ungrateful for how much he actually does do (like working the overnight shift to actually bring some money into our house) and a host of other things such as feeling like the worst mom in the world, and feeling upset at myself for feeling mad at the owlet's temper tantrums when there are hundreds, thousands even, of women who desperately want a baby, and why can't I just enjoy every single moment of life with him, because these little moments are going to go by so fast, and...

what was I talking about?

Anyway.

I do not do well with little sleep (although the owlet IS sleeping better-hurrah!) or with feeling unappreciated.

Because that's what it is. I'd love to hear some "thank you's" now and then.

Thank goodness for Gilmore Girls and a brand new bottle of wine. They can always make me feel loads better.

dreaming of sleeping

The owlet turned 10 months old yesterday. I cannot even fathom this. Time has really flown by. It's so ridiculous. It feels like just the other day he could barely hold his head up, and now he's crawling around with a vengeance and getting in to ev-er-y-thing.

He's also STILL not sleeping through the night. We've been on a new routine where he wakes up at 10:30, 2:30 and 5:30. Everyday. Like clockwork. Babies can't tell time my ass. He sure seems to be able to.

We have been trying something new lately. Thanks to my library job, I checked out a book called "The Sleep Lady's Goodnight, Sleep Tight" book. It's sort of like no cry sleep, without the picking up and gradual settling down. He's 10 months old. He needs to learn how to self-soothe, without cry it out. We're making a little bit of progress. He still woke up 3 times last night, but at least I was able to sing him back to sleep, rather than having to pick him up. Yay!

Last night though, as I was lying in bed, waiting to see if he would stay asleep or start screaming again, slowly falling into sleep, I remembered how it was when he was a teeny tiny little guy, and I would dream that I had fallen asleep holding him or nursing him.

I'd wake up when he cried, and would look around for him, under the blanket, in my arms, sometimes even moving my arms as if he was still lying there.

Ahh, sleep deprivation. It does wonderful things to the mind, doesn't it?

On more than one occasion, I even asked the hubs to reswaddle him, because I had heard him fussing, only for the poor hubs to get out of bed and check on the owlet who was not unswaddled, nor was he crying.

I don't think I imagined way back then that we'd still be having problems with sleeping. That the owlet would still be waking up so often during the night.

The hubs keeps reminding me that we're not alone in this. That there are tons of babies who don't sleep through the night, because if there weren't there wouldn't be all these books about helping kids and toddlers to sleep better.

I like this thought. Especially when I hear that a friend's baby is sleeping through the night at just a week old. (I'm really happy for her, by the way, but seriously?)

One of these days we'll all be sleeping better and all this will be but a distant memory. Something I look back on fondly.

At least I hope so.

My Month with ISR

I enrolled the owlet in a program called Infant Swimming Resource, or ISR. It's a 4-6 week long program for kids ages 6months and up. And it's not your typical "swim lesson" for babies or toddlers. What I mean is, rather than just getting the babies comfortable in the water, blowing bubbles or "paddling" they learn survival and self resuce skills. Not that there's anything wrong with those lessons, by the way.

Survival skills? for a 9 month old baby? Yup. You read that right.

The thought behind ISR is "not one more child drowns." That's a stance I can get behind.

No, we don't have a pool in our backyard. Heck, we don't even have a backyard. But there are two pools in our complex. There are also random bodies of water all over the place here in Denver. Rivers, ponds, pools at the mini-golf course. Whatever. Water is everywhere, and I decided I wanted the owlet to be safe in it. And near it.

After I signed the owlet up for his lessons, I panicked slightly and decided I should do a little research beyond the ISR website, and the website of my instructor, Kim Roundtree.

Big mistake. The internet is full of information. It is also full of idiots.

On one message board I visited (of which I don't remember the name, thankfully) one woman said that she didn't believe in ISR because "they let your kids cry and I don't ever want my child to cry."

.... Umm. I dont ever want my child to cry either, but he does. Especially when I don't give him something he wants. I realized then that these people were idiots. I don't want my owlet to cry unnecessarily either, but I also don't want him to fall into a pool and not know how to save himself because "I didn't want him to cry."

While no child can ever be "drown-proof" we can certainly do all we can to help teach them what to do to be safe. The same way we put them in car seats, or make them wear bike helmets, or sunscreen, or vaccinate them. (Hot topic, I know.)

Anyway, enough rambling. This is what you really came to see.

This is one of the early lessons. He's a little fussy, but I think he's more frustrated than scared. His instructor was amazing, and she worked with him so well, really learning what worked with him and what didn't. For example, she discovered that she couldn't really ease him into things, she just sort of had to go with it, because otherwise he kept his hand in his mouth and had a hard time floating.

The way they work these lessons is in 10 minute increments everyday for 4 weeks (for the little ones, it's 6 weeks for the older kiddos). They start out pretty simple, just getting them to float for longer and longer periods on their backs. Then they move to putting them down face down in the water so that they roll over onto their backs, then she sort of flips him upside down so he does almost a summersault. The last couple things are sitting him on the wall and putting him in face first and then backwards, all of which helps simulate what it would be like if they fell in the pool.

The final 3 regular lessons are done in clothes. Summer clothes, fall clothes and winter clothes. This helps prepare them for what it would feel like if he fell in with his clothes on, since it's more likely that he would fall in water wearing clothes, rather than in his bathing suit.

He did phenomenally in his "clothing" lessons, adjusting so well to the weight of the clothes. I was amazed everyday watching how well he progressed.

People have asked me how I wasn't completely freaking out during his lessons, partly because I think that it's just not normal to see a baby floating on his own in a pool of water. And it's true, it's really not. But after the first lesson, when I saw how great Kim was with the owlet, and how well he was doing, any fears I had (and there were quite a few) simply melted away, and instead I sat in awe of how well he was doing.

Today I got to go in the pool with him so that I could learn how to play with him in the water without undoing everything that Kim has worked so hard with the owlet on (and that the owlet has worked so hard learning!) before we go back in 4 months so that he can learn their next step: swim-float-swim.

This has been such an amazing experience for both the owlet and I, and I'm actually a little sad that our lessons are over, for now, anyway.

Becoming a happy mother, part 2

via

I had to return 10 Habits of Happy Mothers to the library the other day, even though I hadn't read every chapter. Oh well. I read the chapters that seemed relevant to me, and skipped the rest.

One of the chapters that I did manage to find time to read was about Fear.

Ahh, fear. My constant companion now that I have a child. Fear creeps into my house more often than I would like to admit, and I don't always know how to make him go away. He usually creeps in slowly, as a brief passing thought, and then suddenly I can't sleep, my heart is pounding and my brain is full of "what-if's."

What this chapter said was that often times our fears for our children, such as something terrible happening to them often stem from the fact that there is so much that is simply out of our control, and we don't like this.

Um, hi. Yeah. That right there? That's me. There are two things that I really am not comfortable with. Not knowing, and feeling like I'm not in control. Looks like fear is here to stay.

Except that she talks about how when we understand that this is where the fear is coming from, and then let go of it, it doesn't bother us as much anymore. (maybe.)

The author gave the example of a parent's worry that their child will contract some life threatening illness, like Leukemia. If we really sit back and think about it, this is a pretty rare illness. The odds are in my favor that my child will NOT get leukemia. (phew. of course, half the parenting books out there would lead you to believe that while you're pregnant anything and everything is going to go wrong, and that even more will go wrong once that little bundle of joy is out in the world, but whatevs.)

It's our job as mothers to worry. If there was a job description, I'm sure that would be #4, after feed, clothe and love your child.

Actually, I'd love to see that job description.

So, I'm trying a new thing. I'm trying to let go of some of the control. Well, I'm trying to be comfortable with the fact that I can't control everything. I can sure as heck control SOMEthings though. I can keep him as safe as I can, baby-proof, teach him things that are safe and things that are not, and I guess, the rest is...

out of my control.

(shudder)

Happy Fathers Day

Dear Hubs,
You are an amazing father. I love watching you play with the owlet. (Most of the time. Sometimes I think you're just trying to give me a heart attack, but whatevs. He seems to like it.)

From day one, I knew you'd be great with him. I mean, just look at how proud you are!

You light up whenever you see our son, and he does the same around you.

You deal with poopy diapers and screaming tantrums in the restaurant.

You wipe his tears and make him laugh.

I know that the fun (and the challenges) are just beginning, but I also know that you will continue to be incredible. Not just to him, but to me as well.


Happy Father's Day to one of the greatest Dads I know.

Becoming a happy mother

I checked a book out at the library the other day (one of the perks of working there is that I get to see allllll the new books come in) called The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers.

So far, I've only read the first few chapters, but it has really changed my way of thinking.

The first chapter talks all about how important we are as mothers, and how valuable we are, even if we don't think we're very valuable/worthwhile/whatever. At the end of each chapter the author provides some suggestions about how to put into practice whatever she talked about in the chapter, and one of the suggestions at the end of this chapter was to write a list about all the things that you are good at, or whatever.

Basically anything that you are proud of or that makes you feel good about yourself.

I really tried to take this to heart, and while I didn't actually make a physical list, because seriously, who has time for that? I did think about one thing that I really like about myself and that is that I do what I need to do for myself, even if it takes some time.

For example, when I was in graduate school studying Wilderness Therapy, I realized a year and a half in that this was not what I wanted to be doing. I LOVE the wilderness. I love the feeling that I get being out there, and I wanted to bring that same joy and healing to others. Except, I started to hate it. To despise being out there. So, I switched. And I studied straight up Transpersonal Counseling instead.

And, more recently, I made the incredibly difficult transition away from being a full time school based therapist, to a part time shelver in a library so that I could be a more present, less stressed mommy to my owlet. It took me forever, but it was a wonderful decision.

The other chapter that has really affected me is the chapter on not being so competitive/judgmental with other mothers. And we are ALL guilty of this. Even when we judge other moms on the way they are dressed, either to make ourselves feel better, or, as is often the case, make ourselves feel worse, we are judging others.

And it needs to stop.

We're all doing the best damn job we can, aren't we? (well. most of us.) <---another judgement.

But seriously. All of our kids are going to hit their milestones at different times. Some will be talking before their first birthdays, others will be running and jumping and climbing first. Its not a competition. And when we compete or judge others, we just end up losing. Because we either end up feeling like crap for what we're not doing, or we end up feeling like crap because we come to the realization that we were totally being all judgy mcjudgerson just to make ourselves feel better.

So the next time I ask you about your kid and how they're doing, I'm asking because I really want to know, not because I'm going to tell you how much better my son is doing than yours.

And when you tell me that your kid has been sleeping through the night since they were a week old, I'm not going to secretly want to smack you, because I have learned how to function on next to no sleep, so there.

Happy 9 Months, Owlet!

My dearest owlet,

You turned 9 months old today. It is hard to believe how fast time has flown. I know I say that every month (and then I say that every month), but its totally true. You are growing up so. darn. fast!

Just a few short months ago you were just a wee little thing, barely even able to sit up on your own, let alone crawl.

look at how small you were! And how different!

But slowly, you started to grow and change. You started sitting up on your own, and got better with tummy time. Then you started rolling around everywhere you went.

And now, look out world, because you are crawling with a vengeance. It took you a while to get there, but once you got it boy, you got it. Within just a couple days of learning to crawl, you also learned how to move from a sit to a crawl, and mommy's life will really never be the same.

Of course I knew it would never be the same when you entered my world 9 months ago. It has been such an amazing journey so far, little owlet, and I look forward to the journey still yet to come. You are such an incredible little boy, and I love watching the little boy you are becoming. You are constantly exploring your world, even the things that we don't always want you to explore, like the cable box or the dog's water bowl.

But you're learning and growing every day, owlet. You are so fun, and I am so glad that you are in my life.


Happy 9 months birthday, my little man. I love you.

Love,
Mommy