Life With a Baby

I'm always fascinated with how other moms go about their day to day mothering so I decided to give you the general gist of my life in current time. Lately I've been feeling like Gabe is a little Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. During the day, he is an absolute joy to be around. He's always in a good mood, he takes his naps, he smiles and laughs like nobody's business. But then the sun sets. And my darling boy turns into a little hellion. Every night is a crapshoot. Some nights he sleeps all night. Sometimes he'll wake up at 11:30 then sleep until 5 but not want to go back to sleep then. Sometimes he'll sleep until 2, wake up and scream and yell then not want to go back to sleep. Sometimes he wakes up then goes back to sleep. It usually means I'm nursing him back to sleep too unless I want to hear the screaming banshees again. This sort of thing is not fun. I've tried the whole sleep training thing again, trying to let him cry it out. But now that he stands up in his crib and just yells, there is no lying down and quieting down on his own. It sucks. I'm hoping one of these days something clicks and sleep comes easy to him. It never has so I think we're due.

While I think that I've finally gotten used to motherhood, I sometimes find myself thinking a certain way that surprises me. Like in a way that leads me to believe that I haven't gotten used to it. Does that even make sense? Basically, it'll be the middle of the night. I've just been woken up by Gabe, fed him and carefully put him back in his crib. I've crept back into my room and fell into bed...only to hear him start crying again.  I look at the clock and realize I've now been awake for close to an hour. I sit up and out loud say, "what the eff". Only I'm dropping f bombs like it's my job. For a split second, I am mad that I can't go back to sleep. But then I walk in and pick him up and hold him tight and feel bad for getting mad. It's like you're supposed to love every single second of time with your baby, no matter how little sleep you're getting because, as you know, they grow up so fast and all that. But I'll be honest...I don't love that time. I'm wishing it would go by faster so that I can finally fall back asleep. I know lack of sleep goes along with the parenting job description but c'mon, every night?  This girl loves sleep too, I can love both, right?

But then the morning comes and Gabe wakes up. I'll go in and get him and bring him back to bed. He usually eats then flips over and crawls over to John and starts banging his hands on his back, dadadadada. So while it might be annoying to get woken up in the middle of the night, getting woken up by that little face with the sun streaming in....there's nothing better.

We head downstairs and I put on the tv...always PBS so that I feel slightly less guilty for the tube running all day long. But it's mostly on for background noise. Or to get in my head and leave behind theme songs to things like Cat in the Hat, Super WHYY and Sid the Science Kid. I get some coffee and check all my social media while Gabe plays and trys to pull the laptop cord. Then we head in for breakfast. Meals are also becoming increasingly difficult. Besides the fact that since Gabe is getting an extra meal or two at night and is less hungry for apples and oatmeal, he's also a lot more distracted. Mealtimes take longer and longer. I don't mind though, I just sit there and talk to him like he was a functioning adult. I run ideas for things past him and tell him our plans for the day. I also sing Where is Thumbkin while I'm spooning cereal into his mouth.

Then comes playtime. And a lot of crawling. He's all over the place. I've been able to coralle him in the living and dining room without having to watch him like a hawk. I can usually fold laundry or vacuum or tweet at this point. But now he's started climbing up the steps...and since we're slackers with no gate yet, it's back to following him around doing the whole no, no, no, no, no Gabe. But canvasing the house tired him out and once he starts getting cranky, he has a quick snack and goes down for a nap. Then it's a mad rush to get a shower and complete as many tasks as possible in the normal 45 minutes.

The rest of the day is spent playing, or running errands, taking walks, making lunch, prepping dinner, cleaning up, making craft projects, wasting time on the internet, etc...Then by 5, we're counting the minutes until Daddyboy comes home. I usually have Gabe's dinner ready to go so that John feeds him as soon as he comes home while I'm finishing up our dinner.  That's my favorite part of the day, the 3 of us sitting at the table, eating dinner together. Once we're done eating, I'll start cleaning up while John and Gabe hang out. Soon it's bedtime. I usually have about 2 or 3 hours to myself at night after Gabe goes to sleep, but once again I get annoyed. All day long, I'm thinking I can't wait til bedtime so I can do this or that...but then I realize I'm beat. So I head to bed praying that I get a good stretch of sleep. And we start the whole thing all over again.

And in other news, the Top 25 Mom blog thing ends tonight so I won't be hustling for your votes anymore. But if you wouldn't mind doing it just one more time today, before 8pm EST, high fives all around.