i can't

i just can't today.

we woke at 530, to val screaming in his sleep. i couldn't get him back to bed, so he & i have been up since then. conrad got up at 7, and after breakfast, they both threw up everything they ate. no fever, no coughing, they seem fine. of course, this morning, i'm puking up everything i eat too.
val won't let me out of his sight. cries horribly everytime i go anywhere not in his line of vision. conrad is being his usual cheery self, but my poor vally is having a rough day.

none of this would matter any other morning, but somehow it does today. i am tired, i am run down, i am not eating well or enough, & i have been alone in the house with my babies since wednesday, & let's be honest, even when N is home mom doesn't get a break. actually, i dont know that any of that matters either, except for the fact thst i have reached some undefineable limit.

i am done. i just can't today, & i knew it when i burst into tears at the thought of another day alone in the house. i called my mom, who will be here shortly to spell me, so i can leave. i am not going grocery shopping, or accomplishing anything that needs doing. i just need to be, without my husband, without my kids, by myself.

do i feel guilty? yes. do i need this bad enough not to care? hell yes. i made it 7 1/2mos without a breakdown & i just can't anymore.

i'm hanging on by my fingernails right now, & i don't know how to make things better other than to try to preserve my mental health. funnily enough, before this pg, i was finally feeling like i was on top of things again- the boys & i had a nice routine going & even though it wasn't perfect, i was getting things done, staying on top of the housework, cooking decent meals again, having sex with my wonderful husband, and basically feeling like ME more often than not.

now, i mostly just feel beat down. the best i have every day goes to my boys, & by the time that's used up & the kids are in bed, there's just nothing left. nothing left for anything but the most essential chores, very little wife left for N & virtually nothing for myself.

i need a vacation.

later same day: my mom called to say she can't be here til after 3. i'm so tired i actually feel ill. i just don't know if its even worth going anywhere at this point, just to come home in 3 hrs bc its sunday & everything will close. plus i'm so tired, i'm not even sure driving is a good idea.

i'm so tired. i just feel broken. my poor boys.

fuck. fuck fuck fuck.

silence....

the boys are in bed, N just got called out to do his evidence tech thing (the real life version of CSI) & i have the house to myself. the birds are asleep for the night, the cats are all racked out, & everything is quiet. it's so nice i'm tempted to stay awake a little later than usual just to enjoy the silence.

on a practical note-- the B&E that N got called out for is one of a string in our area lately. there's a crew that breaks into cars in public parking lots, (grocery stores, movie theatres, etc), steals garage door openers & then uses them to break into the houses while the people are still out. might want to hide your garage door opener if you carry one in your car.... we are from now on!

it's One of Those Days

let me begin by saying N is a wonderful father. he is attentive & loving & very involved. that said, here is what happened in our house this morning.
val wakes up at 6, con follows & both have no intention of going back to sleep. so i get up, grab val (who was yelling bc he can) so he'll shush, hand him to N (who is still in bed) & say "watch val" & go to get the living room baby ready, thinking i'll take the boys out & start the day so N can sleep in. i'm just finishing putting water on for tea, when i hear a thud & just *know*. so i go running back to the bedroom to find a very upset N trying to comfort a screaming val, who has (of course) fallen out of our bed. i grab val, just bc i know he'll calm down faster with mama, & say to N (& i'm not proud of this) "what did you do?" N admits he must have dozed off, & i calm down enough myself to realize he already feels crappy enough & tell N that it could have happened to anyone (& it could). val is none the worse for the wear, & now N is definetly up, so we all get up for the day.
we put the boys down for a nap around 8, both rack out until val has a monster poop (& i mean HUGE. the running-down-his-legs-exploding-out-the-back-all-the-way-up-to-his-neck kind of huge.) so i get up, (i had been trying to nap away a headache) & clean up val & ask N to give him a quick bath while i handle the laundry situation. instead of taking val out of the room where conrad is sleeping to bathe him, N bathes him next to con's bed. so now conrad is up.
we relocate the boys to the living room, & i ask N to watch them for a couple hours so i can nap. he agrees & i remind him to feed the boys the beef i've left out for them. we've talked before about how meat is a new texture for them & they need really little bites until they figure it out.
after being kept up by this stupid headache for an hour, i finally crash, only to be awakened at 10 by N searching for clothes bc conrad has puked up all his beef. i get up, & after quizzing N decide the problem was the monster bites daddy was feeding the dude. during this discussion, conrad also decides to blow out his diaper.
sigh.
i love my husband & he is a great dad. but sometimes i have to remind myself that he is trying & spends less time with them than i do, so there is a learning curve. sigh.

Uninvited Thoughts

i had my first really positive thoughts about this little one on my way home from the doctor the other day. not that i've been thinking negatively, i just haven't been thinking about him at all. anyways, seeing the little arms & legs starting out & the little heart beatinn away is always cool, but on the drive home i caught myself kind of laughing over how the little guy has just been growing quietly away in there while the usual chaos reigns all around. i thought to myself "the little booger" & really smiled over him for the first time. the thought also crossed my mind, totally univited, that another little dude would be pretty cool. amazing, huh? sometimes i surprise myself.

project nap: day 3

they both took a TWO HOUR nap this morning, & con had a 40 minute nap this afternoon (val is still asleep!) i'm afraid to write more lest i jinx our good luck...

(Finally) an EDD and, in baby related news, more on naps!

just to update my own record keeping: baby #3 is measuring 8w3d, & our EDD is 6/6/10. (2 days before my birthday!) although the doc reminded me that the EDD is more of a goal.... he pointed out that i'm still considered high risk for preterm labor, since its already happened with the dudes & bc of the surgeries on my cervix. yay. & i'm a carrier for group b strep, which apparently can increase your chances of PTL as well. so we'll be followed by the high risk mfm again as well as my OB. but for now baby looks perfect! we talked about VBAC, he's open to trying & supportive of it in general, but did point out the risks to me & baby & said we'll have to keep re-evaluating options as the pregnancy progresses. which is fine by me. when all is said & done, i want what's best for the kiddo(s... all 3 of them). in other good news, there is only a low chance of me developing pre-e again. apparently only 1 in 5 women who have pre-e with one pregnancy will get it in subsequent pregnancies, so that's reassuring.

& on to baby news: day 2 of our new nap plan is not going so well... grampa babysat while i was at the doc, so their morning nap routine was messed up & their nap only about 15 mintues long.
val finally caved into sleep around 230, (next to me on the bed of course, so i can't go do anything else!) & conrad is still fighting it. he's in his swing & i have our "nightnight" music on. he *just* stopped complaining about life & i know he's tuckered, so i'm hopeful he'll give in & nap soon.... poor little guys. i'm letting them dictate the timing of their naps, i don't try to put them down until they give me sleepy cues & con actually already fell asleep once, but almost immediately sneezed & woke himself up & has been fighting it ever since. i decided i'm going to stick with this new nap routine for at least a week before i re-evaluate.
on the plus side, bc N left for work at 230 this morning after we fed the boys, they went right back to sleep & slept til 645!!! yay!! i'm gathering evidence that it really IS his alarm doing the damage in the morning so i can persuade him to consider either sleeping upstairs on the nights he works, or find some other alternative that does NOT involve an alarm clock going off in the boys room at 5am.
& now con's asleep :) patience pays off! now i'm just left sitting here until val wakes up.....

Sleeping Babies & Snobby Parents

as i sit here watching my exhausted boys refuse to nap, i am left pondering the politics of getting your kid to sleep. a disclaimer: if your precious little angel sleeps through the night & you are convinced that its all due to your stellar parenting, please quit reading NOW.

for the rest of us sleep deprived parents, ever notice how snobby people are about their sleeping babies? i am firmly convinced that having a child who sleeps through the night before age 2 (i mean ALL the way through... not just 5 hrs at a stretch) is largely due to luck & nothing more. N & i are not high stress parents, we don't always rock or feed the boys to sleep; we roll with whatever their needs seem to be on any given night. they just aren't & never have been, "good" sleepers. more personal evidence that its all luck: my family tends to have lots of kids, & within each nuclear family, there is a consistent mix of "good" & "bad" sleepers. it's really just luck folks, & maybe genetics. it's not bc you never rocked your baby to sleep, or always rocked your baby to sleep, or give them a bottle at night, or breastfed until they were 3. you just got lucky. i wish people would bear that in mind before launching into a "how to get your child to sleep" monologue. every kid is different, & there is not a one size fits all solution.

& while i'm on the topic of sleep, has anyone else noticed how judgemental folks get when you say you don't buy the "cry it out" philosophy? i hate how CIO is considered by so many to be the gold standard of sleep techniques. (if you have been drinking the koolaid, calm down, i'm not knocking your parenting. its a choice every family makes for themselves.) in my mind however, i just don't think it is a productive means of teaching a baby to go to sleep. i don't believe that babies have the capacity to calm themselves when they're so young, & i don't believe that babies have the cognitive ability to understand why they are being left to cry. of course, left to sob long enough, any child will eventually pass out. 1) they exhaust themselves, & 2) its a baby's natural response to a traumatic situation. (any NICU parent can tell you, after traumatic procedures docs often expect your baby to pass out. remember that sleeping little boy handed to you after his circumcision? yeah, that's why. babies can't control their circumstances, so its a defense mechanism when they can't handle whats going on around them--i can't tell you how many times this was explained to N after boys had ultrasounds & scans & x-rays, & tubes put in, etc. but it is still unsettling to see.) in any case, i fail to see how leaving a child to scream teaches that child to put himself to sleep.

how then do we get our boys to sleep? we do whatever they need-- we'll cuddle, or rock, or rub their back, or get a bottle, until they put themselves out. i have to be honest, we don't have alot of trouble getting them down at night. they go out pretty easily betwen 6-7pm every night.
our trouble is the day time sleep. we wake up once at night to eat (they're hungry, this is totally fine with me), but around 4-5am everyday, we start a pattern of restless sleep, where they are obviously still tired, but need alot of help to stay asleep. this means i am usually awake the entire time, until they get up for good around 7-8am. i think this is bc N gets up at 5 when he works, & refuses to turn down his alarm, so the noise & his subsequent rustling around wake them up enough that they think it's daytime. i'm debating moving myself & the boys upstairs (our master bedroom is on the ground floor, the boys' room is upstairs, far away.) i know N will hate the idea, & it will mean i handle nighttime feedings solo, but we need to do something about the sleep situation, bc its just not working for a preggo & exhausted mom, not to mention the little dudes.

& they are AWFUL nappers. they are difficult to get to sleep, & even harder to keep asleep. if their combined naps for the day total 1 hr, we're lucky. they just aren't getting enough sleep & i know it. we're trying a new regime, where we do a "nightnight" routine before naps (when i see them getting tired) & i'm back to letting them sleep in their swings, since at this point all i want is to get them in the pattern of napping. as i type, we are in the bedroom, val has just fallen asleep in his swing & conrad, who is truly exhausted, is fighting it. hard. wish us luck.