Keep Calm

This delightful reminder to stop taking myself so seriously made it's way bravely across the Atlantic Ocean. It weathered various hardships and survived the breaking of it's protective glass. Now it sits on my desk and mocks me. That's right - it mocks me. With it's beautiful green print and it's smug laissez-faire attitude. *sigh* If only it were that easy.

I have allowed myself to stress out again - big time. Ya'll know how I get, right? I have a problem that becomes a tail-chaser, and I practically turn myself to butter like the tigers in Little Black Sambo... or perhaps I could find a less racist comparison... This particular muddle is a well worn refrain: I need to go back to work but child care is mucho expensive - can we really afford to pay out an average of 2/3 of my wage in child care? Also, my career involves early and/or late hours including weekends and holidays. With a husband who travels for work (and therefore can't be reliable back-up), how can I go back to the spa? If I DO, then when will I see my family? This is what happened when we fell apart the first time! But if I don't go back to massage, how will I earn even enough to pay for child care never mind contribute to the household? BUT if I don't go back to work, will we EVER be able to stop living paycheck-to-paycheck?!... you see where this is heading, right? Mental instability and sleepless nights, that's where...

So I'm making stuff. Again. It's insane. I start to obsess, then I just shuffle zombie-like over to the computer. If I was already on the computer (say, looking for jobs), I just open a new tab for... wait for it... Pinterest, and start browsing for something that I can make NOW.

So, in addition to the macrame bracelets:

And the Viking fort and the Astrid costume and the garden, there is also some Celtic knot-work:

(toddler headband on the left & random, useless Celtic Heart Knot made from twine on the right)

Dream catchers woven into metal links:

(possibly to be made into bracelets or necklaces? possibly just because I like them :-/)

A new blanket for LR:

I bought the fabric and trim intending to make a blanket for our neighbor who was very pregnant at the time. When I got home, I realized that while the coral of the trim was one of the colors in the baby's room, the pattern and color combination were strictly my taste, and not my neighbor's taste at all... so it sat around waiting for me to have a crafting emergency... I finished it this past weekend in just under 2 hours... Lily Ruth LOVES it :-P

And now we come to what may be the death of me. Tiny pom poms. I saw a garland on Honestly WTF a few weeks back, and the thought of it has haunted me. I almost bought an actual pom pom maker (no lie - there IS such a thing), but then I saw the tutorial for making pom poms with a fork (A FORK?! I have one of those!), so I spent the $7 that I would have spent on the pom pom maker on tiny cards of yarn instead! Check me out:

*sigh* Well, I may not be gainfully employed full-time, but my life is gaining color, splash and spice... right? That counts... right? *double sigh* I wish that somebody would pay me to make all of this stuff. Anybody know a benefactor with a weakness for home-spun craftiness? And don't say 'Etsy' to me. Some of this stuff takes way more time to make than I could re-coup in selling prices. I want a flat-out benefactor or a full time job with child care. Make it happen. Toute de suite.

... I talked this all over with Kittyn - the one who sent me the Keep Calm picture - and she suggested that perhaps my angst is due to a sense of defeated expectations. I really didn't picture my life looking like this right now. Despite the fact that taken big-picture, my life is pretty damn good, I still expected to be in a different place right now. I mean, the big 4-0 is right around the corner. I fully expected to have more stuff figured out by now! I already went back to school and found a career that I love, so why isn't the rest of it all just falling into place? I expected to be working full time, and even working hard. What I didn't expect was constant uncertainty and/or worry. I expected to feel like a grown up... you know - steady job, bills paid, work all week & weekends are for family... grown up stuff... yet here I sit. Me. Just me in a 39-year-old body. When do the grown ups get here?

p.s. Aside from the blanket (which is me sewing two pieces of fabric together then adding a satin edge), all of these projects are on my Pinterest boards. You can find me as lilyruthsmama (big surprise). If you want/need a Pinterest invitation, just ask me :-)

Really?

Here is the scene: My bed. Eleven o'clock - P.M. (!!!). The following things are currently in/directly next to my bed:

1. A congested, SNORING husband.
2. A daughter with what can best be described as 'Restless, Thrashing Body Syndrome'.
3. A 14-year-old cat whose grass-roots campaign to Sleep ON Rachel's Legs seems to be gaining ground.
4. An 85 pound German Shepherd who is nervous about the wind and is therefore pacing the hardwood floors.
5. A constant, intense pain in my right arm that threatens my mental stability.

- I was going to draw a diagram for you, but I don't have the software... so maybe I'll do it later and scan it it... don't hold your breath.

It's a veritable symphony of Mama insomnia:

zzzzzzZZZZZZ. zzzzzzZZZZZZ. zzzzzzZZZZZZ. zzzzzzZZZZZZ.
writhe, kick, WHACK, *lip smack*. writhe, kick, WHACK, *lip smack*.
puuuuuuRRRRRRR, circle, nudge, knead, *sigh*.
Click click click click click click click. Click click click click click click click.
(ouch......... ouch........ ouch......)

I've moved to the living room. The dog followed me. She is cutting off the circulation to my feet in her efforts to be close to me... yet I cannot hear the snoring... and nobody has whacked me in several minutes... and there are no cats pinning me down... *le sigh*... I think this is an improvement :-/

** EDIT: I returned to my bed (after an hour). I was lured in by the siren call of a shrieking Lily. We settled in. She requested nursing ('urse?'). She finished nursing, flung herself off of me and onto my pillow. Not two minutes later, she whacked me in the eye so hard that I saw stars. Not celebrities, people - because honestly, who would mind a quick glimpse of Tae Diggs any time of day or night? - but hot gold flashes of pain popping behind my (optimistically) closed eyelids. So I moved her. So she scooted perpendicular to me. In short order I had a tiny foot across the bridge of my nose. It inched over to my eye socket. Then down over my face. Then it slid to rest in the cup of my nursing bra.

I can hear you now - 'Ya'll need to get that baby out of your bed'. You're right. We do. It's just that it took an excruciatingly loud and long process to get her into her bed for the first half of the night. Neither one of us is quite ready for the protracted battle that it will take to evict her completely... it's a good thing that she's so dang cute...

:-/

I am in a funk. A truly funky funk. I have all kinds of random crap in my head, and it has made a funk stew of my brain. As a result, I have nothing fun or funny to post. I haven't even made any super yummy food! Stupid funk.

If I have to have the funk, couldn't it be a fun kind of funk? Like maybe P-Funk?



or Elephunk?



or even just Funky Fresh for the 90's?



no? Just regular funk? FIne.

Never fear - I'll shake this off and be back to gratuitous baby picture posting and cooking up a storm in no time. You'll see.

the standoff continues...

Remember how excited I was on night two of sleep training? Remember how quickly Lily Ruth went to sleep and stayed that way? Well, that was a fluke. A cruel joke. A one-time-event that is never to be repeated.

Last night, she went to sleep fairly easily, but when she woke at 2 am to nurse, she refused to go back to sleep. Well. let me amend that - she would suck her thumb and pretend to be asleep if one of us was rocking her or standing over her crib with a hand on her back, but as soon as we walked away, she would pop up and cry. That got old FAST, and we also realized that it was completely defeating the purpose. She not only has to sleep in her own bed, but she needs to be able to soothe herself to sleep WITHOUT one of us being there. So we went back to bed, and she stayed in her crib YELLING - not crying, but full-on angry yelling - (aaaahhhhhhhh... ahBAWB... ahdaDAda... aAAaah... DAAAAhd... *sob*... ahbabababa...) for over 2 hours. I'm pretty sure that she has figured out that full-bore crying is truly exhausting, (and she is in it to win it) and that is why she has switched to yelling.

Tonight, she passed out while nursing at around 8:45. It's not optimal for her to fall asleep someplace other than her crib, but you gotta work with what ya got, so I walked her to her room, and laid her down. Her big blue eyes immediately popped open and the yelling commenced. I waited 30 minutes, then went back in to check on her. Secret weapon #2 had been deployed... and by #2, I mean poop. Ya'll, my angel baby can get herself so worked up that she poops. Awesome. I cleaned her up, rocked her for a few short minutes, then put her into the crib again. She actually rolled onto her tummy and started sucking her thumb, but when I walked away instead of 'laying hands' on her, she sat bolt upright and started yelling. We're going on 20 minutes of round two, and she is showing no signs of fatigue. I, on the other hand, am drop-dead tired. Of course, I cannot sleep while she is crying, because I am her mother. I seem to be hard-wired to her noises. I tried laying out a crafting project - I am bound and determined to finish that Sushi Bracelet!!! - but it didn't soothe me. Instead, my crafting stuff seems to be mocking all of the determination that I had last fall. The multiple unfinished projects feel like ankle weights... or a food diary... something you do because you're supposed to, but that you don't really want to do... which is a shame, because there is some fun stuff in there.

Great. In reading over this post, there seems to be a hint of whine, and an element of 'poor me' seems to be trying to creep in. So here is what I will do. I will breathe deeply - repeatedly. I will stand up, stretch, and go check on my daughter. I will then make a cup of tea and grab my new book. I will turn tonight around and I will give myself time. Time to re-teach my daughter (and myself) to sleep. Time to figure out what I want to do in my 'free time' that will replenish my inner well-spring. Time to just BE without judging myself for not accomplishing something every second. Time to watch my baby grow and learn because she's moving so fast that it feels like a blur! Time to honor who we are and where we are because it's a pretty great place to be if we take the time to notice.

Goodnight. Sleep tight.

My Kingdom for Some ZZZZZZZZ's

Like every other mother of an infant that I am aware of, I am having difficulty convincing my daughter to sleep. Not even her daddy can send her to the Land of Nod these days, and he was always her guy. Sleep training has become my nemesis, my stumbling block and possibly even my Waterloo.

How do you convince a being who is just discovering her own fingers that healthy sleep is essential to healthy brain development? How do you convince an infant that Mama can't function on -6 hours of sleep per night? I gave it a negative number because the light, fragmented sleep that I DO manage to get is hounded by dreams of not being able to get the baby to sleep... Alternatively, I dream of the most stressful job that I ever had - in these dreams, I work there again, and I can't quit. I'm in a vortex of sleeplessness, people, and I'm going down.

Knowing that I'm not alone in this phase does me no good. It just amplifies my new special 'Mommy Fear' of car accidents to know that 100% of mothers of small children are functioning in the same zombie state that I am. SOMEBODY should be in charge, and for once, I'm not demanding that it be me!

So, we've reached the crux of the post - I'm gonna need a coffee I.V., a few toothpicks to prop my eyelids open, and a new batch of songs to sing to the little one. I am sick to death of 'You Are My Sunshine' but when I open my mouth to soothe the savage beast, that's all I can remember... because I'm SLEEP DEPRIVED!

Hand me my pillow and rub my back - I need some soothing myself!

Disappointed

That's right. I'm disappointed - in myself. This has been a hard weekend. Even though it had great moments - Don's sister and her daughter stayed Friday night and my family (plus Don's sister) came over for dinner last night. Those things were great, but for the most part, it was a tough time. Lily Ruth is yet again not napping well or sleeping for long stretches at night, so I am exhausted. And because of all the great family time that we had, I had ZERO alone time and maybe 20 minutes without the baby so I'm headed into the week in a deficit. Also, I am STILL fighting the crying it out, so I spend a LOT of time rocking the baby.

The worst part of it is, I brought it all on myself. We were doing so great! Lily Ruth napped and slept and I spent her quiet time actually getting stuff done. Then Lily started teething again, I reached my limit on the CIO, and everything went down the tubes. Now there is a lot of this...



There are so many things I want to do each day! I want to make Christmas stockings. I want to play with my dog more. I want to figure out how to tweak my make-up routine so that I don't look like a zombie all of the time... you know, stuff. Instead, I dither around waiting for my beautiful baby to either fall asleep or wake up while frantically trying to eat something, pump for the milk bank, pee, shower, check my e-mails and spend maybe 5 minutes on the phone (knowing that my voice will probably wake her up) before she wakes. I know that this stage of her life will not last forever. In fact, she is growing and changing so fast that it startles me. I will be looking right at her and think 'I'm missing it! I must have blinked, because I missed something!'.

Wait - I'm off track. Disappointed - in me. So, not only do I feel pitiful about having no 'me time', but I was a horrible bitch to my husband all day. It started with his breathing. Seriously - I woke up to him breathing morning breath on me and Lily Ruth, and it went downhill from there. Every thing he said, didn't say, did or didn't do just irritated me beyond belief. And he had no idea. I just fumed and snipped and grumped through the day. Nice. Hey, what's the deal with post-pregnancy hormones? I need to look it up. Could I be having my usual cycle without Aunt Flo? Because that would explain A LOT. I am a lunatic, and I want something to blame it on.

So, yeah - I accomplished nothing productive, I acted like a bitch, and I get to start out my week resentful and overtired... well, I COULD strip off the resentful bit like an itchy sweater, that might make things a bit better... lets do that. I'll just remind myself of some good stuff...

Like this toothy grin



Oh - and Friday she was kissing me so hard that I thought she was giving me a cheek hickey! I was laughing hysterically & when I backed off enough to see her face, she was sooooo serious about the whole thing that it set me off again



There's this picture in which I have managed to look human



AND, the fact that it finally got cold here. A strange thing to include on this list, but it meant that I had an excuse to wear baby leg warmers on my arms!



WAIT, I FORGOT TO TELL YOU! I finished a Christmas wreath! It looks a-w-e-s-o-m-e. I'll put a picture of it and a link to the (super easy) tutorial in my next post. Now, I must sign off and try to convince Frank to MOVE HIS STINKY CAT ASS off my bed. He has AWFUL gas tonight, and he is currently stationed near MY HEAD. Unacceptable... of course, as anyone who has ever tried to move Frank knows, he is a jerk when opposed, so this could get ugly. Sleep tight.