***
At 4:00 AM the baby wanted to eat again then spent the next two hours grunting from gas or a two hour attempt to make a bowl movement. Needless to say, she didn't let me go back to sleep. At 6:00 AM, Mary and Bobby called me out of my bed to take them downstairs for breakfast.
Ok. I can do this. Naptime is only ... ugh ... seven hours from now.
I made breakfast. No one ate it. I downed a cup of coffee and made the kids ride their bikes up and down the street, despite the fact that their outside voices were likely waking up the neighborhood.
That activity didn't last long enough. They were back inside running around the house, chasing each other by 7:00 AM.
The baby looked up at me as if to say, 'please save me from all this noise.' But I couldn't save her.
The desired state of synchronized napping didn't pan out the way I wanted it to. I slept for about fifteen minutes - enough to have a nightmare that my kids would go blind from watching the solar eclipse.
I read two pages in my book and had to put it down again. I swear I have already fed the baby ten times today.
On Monday night, I got ready for Mary's parent information night at school. I noticed my hair was shedding more than usual - one of those lovely postpartum symptoms that always seems to attack me a little earlier than the rest of the maternal population.
I finished getting ready, putting on a little make-up for the first time in about ten days. I opted for a 'summer sweater' thinking that the classroom and auditorium would be air conditioned. Peter said, 'you look nice, but isn't it a little hot for a sweater?'
'It's what fits.'
I brushed it off ... until I sat down in a miniature chair in the classroom, trying to listen to Mary's Pre-K teacher go through her policies while dabbing at the sweat dripping down my forehead. So much for that make-up. As if the comment was only addressed at me the teacher said they didn't have air conditioning - just this (very little and very ineffective) fan. I couldn't take it anymore, I ripped off my sweater and sat there in an ill fitting camisole. Still sweating. When I stood up, I noticed my zipper was down. What an awesome first appearance. Who goes to a parent night two weeks after giving birth anyway? I was going stir crazy though - I needed to see people, do something, get out.
On Wednesday night I literally set the table with i-Pads next to the kids' plates. I knew they would be tired after coming home from dance class. Or was I just tired? I rationalized that the devices would teach them more than I could in the next thirty minutes.
The kids fought over the new train game Daddy installed on the iPad. They fought over a little chicken that was part of my Fisher Price barn growing up. Somehow it ended up at our house and for about ten minutes became the hottest commodity in our basement. They fought over who was getting in the car first, who was holding the baby first, who was getting in the bath first, everything but who was going to bed first. They fought over one piece of chalk when 63 others were laying all around them, a rolly polly which ultimately ended up squashed in Bobby's hand, the last of the lemonade and the color of their snack bowl, the sequence of stories at bedtime and who was going to get the last hug goodnight.
They fought just to fight, verbal bickering was followed by a pinch, a push, a pull of the hair, then escalated into Mary hitting a tee-ball right at Bobby's face.
I raised my voice, then I yelled, then I woke up the baby, then everyone cried, then I got a splitting headache, then I dished out hugs and pleaded for everyone just to listen to Mommy, get along, and stop hurting each other. Please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeease.
... And the kicker of all of this, I have help just about every day of the week. So who am I to even complain when so many mothers and fathers are doing this by themselves?
***
When you are the opposite of overjoyed: over-stressed, over-anxious, over-sad, or in my case over-tired, the negatives can occasionally overwhelm the positives; a day of good can be darkened by an episode in the evening when you come this close to losing it.
If you let it. And I refuse to.
I haven't gone to sleep once in the past three weeks regretting the controlled chaos we welcomed into our house. Instead I've gone to sleep thankful for it, embracing the moments when everything just clicked, instead of those when things got messy.
I remembered when Mary and Bobby came downstairs hand in hand in the morning to greet me and the baby. I reflected on the sweet way they talk to each other, coach each other and make each other laugh everyday. I thanked my sister-in-law again for the Moby wrap and the extra mobility it allows. I cherished when the house was quiet, when I felt rested, and when I spent an extra thirty minutes with my book.
I remembered when dinner was simmering on the stove and I had some extra time to make one more trip to the park for the day. When the summer nights were just too pretty for words. When the kids snuggled around me at night to hear stories until it was time for the lights to go out. When the hugs, butterfly kisses, and nose rubs warmed me inside and out. And perhaps my favorite moment this past week; when Margaret had her first bath, Mary and Bobby looking in asking if they could help. Mary touched the baby's hand and said, 'I will love you forever.'
Getting through the sleep deprivation and fatigue is about just that; putting love first everyday.
Lo.
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