I do feel like what I'm trying to capture is pieces of me. Pieces of my life, pieces of my family. Right now, I feel a little like I'm falling to pieces. Now, this is always the sticky part of blogging where you know part of your audience might not like what you're writing, but it's my blog, and so here it goes.
My Mom left me to go to Florida for three months, and I'm falling apart. It makes me feel and sound like a big whiny baby, but I need my mother. She had been filling a void in my life for company, and was darn useful in helping out around the house. The only way I was surviving before as a somewhat functioning person was with her help. I feel like I can get nothing done when I'm home alone. Coming home from the sitter, getting them dinner, changing diapers up and down the stairs, baths, pajamas, bedtime bottles, all of this is manageable on my own but it takes forever. I have papers to grade that aren't getting graded, blogs to post that aren't getting posted (ha ha) and a million other things. We have these daily chores around here that are about the only thing that we can do. Dishwasher loaded, unloaded, run, every single day. Diapers washed, every few days. Our laundry, baby laundry, piled up. I'm feeling like a failure, and I'm a little bit bitter that all of a sudden I have to do it all on my own.
There. I said it. I HATE having to work, I HATE not having enough time for my family, I HATE my husband's schedule that keeps us each single parenting for half a day, and I HATE that my kids have to be at a sitter's house four days a week now. Last week, I ended up giving the babies a bath because they didn't smell right. I took them out of their car seats and they smelled like someone else's house. It freaked me out and made me sad. I HATE being alone in the house all evening, I HATE my lack of motivation to make any kind of food which leads me to eat cereal all the time, and I HATE feeling like a crybaby because this is my life, and other people would live it just fine.
Vent over. On to picture captions, and then I'm snuggling this baby next to me. Did I mention that on top of all this hate I have inside me right now, I developed mastitis? I'm in pain, I felt incredibly sick on Sunday when it started, my milk supply has dropped in the boob that is infected, and I think it is making me exhausted.
January 9 - Just trying out the new color saturation setting (which I think I hate), just caught a little photo of my DH. You can tell it's a weekend because we're both up in the living room late at night. Most of the time the only time we see each other is when I'm in my pajamas asleep.
January 10 - Andy's brother Matt and his wife Patti are having a baby in March. We can't wait to meet baby Ryan! I am always hung up on how to introduce them - My SIL and BIL? My BIL and his wife? The problem being that everyone is an inlaw since I'm an only child. I have two sets of BIL/SIL combos, and it confuses me every time.
Also on January 10 - we turned 9 months! Holy cow!
January 11 - We have tooth! I was able to get it on camera, you might have to squint, but Maggie has a bottom tooth. I've been pushing for Fang, Andy calls it her chomper.
January 12 - The first time we took a tub bath together! There was much splashing and smiling, they were adorable, and of all the bath methods we have tried, this one really is the easiest for one person alone. I enjoyed it, and we will have better and more frequently bathed babies this way! I tried to get a group photo, but couldn't get their eyes of the toys and the water at the same time. I did however get these adorable individual shots.
January 13 - The only thing I got done on this day. I folded that basket of laundry. Yup, I felt pretty good about it!
January 14 - Every night, my goal is to get the babies to sleep on their own, by about 8:30, 9:00. It would be great if they even made it to their crib, but that rarely happens. This night I had put Maggie in her crib after she passed out with a bottle, but Ben wouldn't go to sleep. He was on the opposite side of the bed, but he rolled himself over and gave me that sweet little grin that means something along the lines of "hey lady, don't you want to cuddle me? See how cute I am?". Could you resist that face? And no, we don't do it every night, and yes, it is probably a horrible sleep habit to avoid, but man, do I love snuggling that boy. It's about the only time all day he will lay still and be happy about being held close.
January 15 - Clearly an exciting week for photos, since all I could think of again for this day was pictures in bed. . .but again, look how cute she is? Maggie is more independent about bedtime, she's not into cuddling most of the time, but is pretty good about falling asleep on her own. She does sometimes have to go to her crib when she gets rowdy and I don't want Ben to wake up, but most of the time CIO only lasts about 4 minutes.
This one made me laugh. Same night. It's 10:23. Do you know where your babies are? Certainly not in their cribs, they were both sound asleep in Mommy's bed.
January 16 - I woke up in complete frustration this morning about the state of our house. It is a disaster area. The problem is that with the daily stuff and the laundry we are constantly doing, the rest of the house gets neglected. We would like to sell our condo soon and move into a real house, and every time I look around and think about trying to bring buyers through our house, I could cry. I have ADD, and tackling big organizational projects are one of my biggest nightmares. It goes something like this: I need to clean off the dining room table. There are things there that do not have a designated place in the house (like mail), or that have landed there because we need to do something with the. I might start putting things away, but end up with more piles that need to go to places that don't exist (like my "I should keep this because someday I might be the kind of person who scrapbooks" pile), or I end up with a new project. Put away those books? Okay. But the books need to be sorted, dusted, or donated. Or read. Once the books are sorted, now I need to reorganize the other books. Oh, and box up the ones that are being donated. And that requires getting a box out of the basement, which reminds me that we need to go through my school stuff in the basement because I need a new hole punch. . .you get the picture. It's like that book, "If you give a mouse a cookie" except I don't get a damn cookie in the end.
So back to the pictures. We thought we could at least clear out the eat in kitchen, rearrange it and photograph it to make it picture worthy for real estate photos. See how nice?
Unfortunately, this is what the rest of the kitchen looked like so we could stage the eating area.
Same day, too cute to leave out. Ben and Maggie enjoying the newly installed baby jail. Ben was, of course, interested in trying to eat the bars. Look how big they look holding on and standing up! They haven't figured out pulling up yet, but we think they are closer and closer every day.
Last one from the 16th, we celebrated my SIL's 30th birthday with her family and ours. I made that cake, and was pretty happy with the results. We stayed late playing board games, and it almost felt like a family party pre-babies when I was able to sit and just play Cranium with the girls. I only had a baby in my lap for about 15 minutes :-)
January 17 - We had our first playdate with a large group on this day. A bunch of girls and kids from my local board got together. This was the only interaction I caught all day, mostly Ben and Maggie just sat on the floor and played with toys and stole them from each other, but this was Maggie talking to Katie. Aw.
January 18 - I think Daddy would be proud of the wrestling moves they appeared to be practicing. We can't leave them too close together now without something like this happening. Most often, it is Ben pulling Maggie over by the back of her shirt. She screams bloody murder and he smiles. Oh boy.
I did get photos for today, but didn't have a chance to upload. I'll try to get another post in soon.
1 comment:
i like the wrestling moves! I have been taking pictures of things that happen everyday - today's picture was of my coffe "area"! LOL
i wish your mom was here with you - i would be lost without mine too. but we are available for company :)
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