These past two weeks have been a struggle for me as a Mom. Nate has been out of town for work which meant that I was on 24x7 duty for Abby. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love my daughter and do not regret for a minute being a stay at home Mom. That being said if someone had offered to put me up in a hotel while they took care of Abby I don't think I would have even paused to pack in my rush to get away.
Last week Abby noticed that Nate was gone but took it mostly in stride. She took shorter naps than normal and was a bit more inclined to bring out her shrieking but overall we did pretty good. I ended up spending the majority of the evenings at my parent's house as those last hours of the day seem to drag on forever but overall my mothering bucket was pretty full. You know the bucket that's filled with patience, kindness, willingness to play games, ability to laugh at messes, etc. That mothering bucket. Then Nate came home for the weekend and, while he did spend a decent amount of time with us, he also worked a fair amount. Sunday came and he was gone again for the second business trip this month.
I should have known that things were not going to go well this week when we locked Abby in the rental. (See previous blog post Car Manufacturers and Kids.) Since that fateful moment Abby has refused to nap (Sunday she threw up in her crib to express her unwillingness to nap, Monday she exploded out of her diaper, Tuesday she cried and cried but no crib messes, and Wednesday she fell asleep for 20 minutes before waking herself up by pooping), has pulled out her shriek whenever she wanted to vocally express herself for anything good or bad, decided that individual play is so old-school and, when she wasn't playing with someone else at one of our many, many play dates, she needed to be physically touching me while I entertained her every wake moment, and (through no fault of her own) has had a horrible diaper rash such that any time she wets or soils herself she screams bloody murder while going, while I'm changing her diaper, and after she's all clean. (I know that she's in pain and I truly felt for her - but this was just another negative in a week of what seemed like only negatives.)
As each day progressed my mothering bucket got emptier and emptier until we hit rock bottom yesterday. After one particularly nasty shrieking session I just picked her up, hugged her with all my might, and then started to just sob and sob. A visit with my sister and niece helped brighten the day a bit and I'd hoped that this morning would be a new leaf. Instead, Miss A started making noises at 6am (an hour and a half before normal wake-up time) and my first thoughts were of how horrible this day was going to be. As nap time got closer and closer I could actually feel myself getting tenser and tenser. I just could not bear another no-nap day. The thought of dealing with the aftermath of Abby missing her nap was making me misty eyed. But something amazing happened! On our way home from the water park Abby fell asleep in the car (which she had done earlier this week but to no avail). I went through our bottle and rocking routine before putting her in the crib. Sure enough she bounced up and started to cry as I walked out the door. Then, miracle upon miracles, I heard her stop crying and then...silence. Blessed silence. Abby was sleeping! At the 20 minute mark I grinned. At the 45 minute mark I did a happy dance. At an hour I was giggling like a fool. Finally, after an hour and a half Abby woke up. Sure, she was still an hour and a half short of a normal nap but after the week of no naps this one felt like an eon.
The rest of the day was spent babysitting my niece and having a play date with a friend from church. Then we headed out to the backyard to play. I was amazed at the difference in my attitude. I actively enjoyed playing with the girls and wasn't overcome with frustration at the shrieking and multitude of questions. It made me realize that I'm not a horrible mom and I don't need to rush back to work. Instead I'm a mom that needs a recharge in the middle of the day and if I don't get that recharge I have to work extra hard to pull good things out of the mothering bucket. The power a nap brings is amazing. Hopefully this napping session was what was needed to get us back on track to a normal schedule, a happy baby, and a happy mama. At least until the next business trip!
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I totally feel understand your "mother bucket" Rogue has started to think she is too old for afternoon naps and it can definitely wear on me especially now since I have two and usually when Rogue WAS taking her 2 hour naps I could get Maverick down for at least a 45 min so I could recharge but not anymore and I can tell that my nerves get a little on end by the time Jeremy gets home, I can only image when it would be like spending a week without him!
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