Groundhog Day

Yesterday I hit the wall. Figuratively, not literally. I came home from work, The Babe in tow, and scrambled upstairs for the beginning the evening routine. This week has been a bit chaotic, topping off with my husband having to wake up The Babe yesterday morning to find that she had thrown up in the night and her entire bed needed to be stripped before heading off to work. Yay. I haven't made as many meals, have found myself eating out due to convenience  and what seems to be one big craving for processed food. As a result, we have been out more and the house has suffered as a result.

As I came upstairs I looked around and it looked as though a wild animal had torn through my kitchen, leaving dirty dishes, garbage, watermelon rinds and sippy cups in its wake. Clean Tupperware littered the floor and I came to the realization I had pretty much nothing for dinner for The Babe, as she is choosing not to eat chicken at the moment and that it what we were eating for dinner. As I struggled to put together a meal, avoid the ever-present dog, I felt as though I was in the movie "Groundhog Day". As though I wake up every day and spend time every day cleaning and doing laundry and cooking, only to wake up the next day and have it all undone, have to redo it, only to wake up again with the same thought. I felt defeated. I felt tired. And sad, because I don't want to constantly clean and cook. I want to hang out with my kid. But I'm struggling to find that balance and to quell the desire to clean everytime I'm in the kitchen. Some weeks it feels like a winning battle, but this week was not one of them.

Perhaps its the weather, or an over-scheduled week. Perhaps its the time of year - out of the winter but not quite into the nice part of spring. Perhaps I am looking at the house we own, the storage locker we pay for, and doing the mental math and realizing the end of the clutter and disorganization is nowhere in sight for us. Maybe it's all of that.

Luckily for The Babe and I, my husband swooped in right as I was in the thick of my stressed out melancholy. He took one look at me, put in his earbuds, loaded up a podcast and got to work. While we have different approaches to cleaning and organization in life, he knows I have a breaking point and has learned that when he sees it drastic measures must be taken. He handled the laundry while I spent some time reading to The Babe. He vacuumed while I did the dishes. In the end, we managed to tackle the brunt of it before dissolving into bed. There's more to do, but when I woke up this morning, I didn't see my shadow and went on to a brand new day.

Your relationship magnified

I haven't yet posted about what happens to your relationship once baby arrives because I hadn't asked my husband if he was cool with that kind of a post. The kind where I tell the truth and say that somedays, not everyday, but somedays having a baby can make your relationship more work than it was before. Your problems, quirks and quarks can easily explode in the pressure cooker mix of lack of sleep, confusing baby cries and self-doubt. An innocent question such as "did you feed her on both sides?" is received as "obviously if you had fed her on both sides she would not be crying now. You should know that by now. You're a bad mother." Yelling and tears quickly ensue, as hormones are running rampant. But we've never had that happen to us ;)

There's the soother debate, the legal guardian "discussion", and the realization that a cleaning fairy does not magically appear when you have a baby. These used to be things we could talk about calmly, but our voices seem to get louder now. All of sudden staying home with the baby can turn into staring at an unkempt house and wanting help. A lot of help. And a maid and a cook. When your partner comes home, those observations have now turned into a list, a discussion and sometimes, a fight. You've read my previous post on lists - I love lists! But when there's things on the list that are not fun or hard to do, those often spark heated debates, more heated then before.

Maybe it's because I'm tired and sore a lot. Maybe it's because not working is unfamiliar to me and I am sometimes resentful of my husband getting to have more child-free time than I do during the day.

I now repeat what I hear in a heated conversation, so my husband has a chance to defend himself or clarify what I *think* he's saying. I try really hard at home. I hired a cleaning lady to come once a month. And I've resigned myself to the fact that the laundry will never completely be all done. Oh well, you can wear the same pair of underwear 4 days in a row right? ;)

~ H

More hours in the day

Lately I have felt as though I'm not getting it done. Any of it. My house feels like a bomb went off inside of it, the dishes appear from out of nowhere, and all of a sudden it's time to make dinner again and the thought of cooking a meal is exhausting. I thought we would have gotten the hang of this by now. I thought it would be easier by now.

I have talked to other moms and I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. But why does it feel so overwhelming all of the time? Is it because we moved into a fixer upper that needed more fixing than we realized? Is it because on top of normal housework we also have a dog that sheds like crazy and needs to be walked more than I am walking her now? When did the thought of vacuuming become so tiring? As soon as the Babe goes down for a nap I'm in the kitchen, wiping and sweeping and before I can finish she's up again. I try to work grocery shopping into a walk, but more often than not I forget one key ingredient and it's frozen pizza night again. And I only have one, very good baby. How do people do it with more?

The problem becomes compounded by the fact that I am a very social person and would rather be walking with friends than cleaning. So there are a lot of instances where I have the time but I choose to spend it with other moms getting caught up on what the babies are doing. I become my own worst enemy. This week my mission is to finish the to-do list, and if it means being a little less social than that's what I need to do. Because my sanity may end up depending on it.

~ H