1: No sleep. Because of so many reasons. Mainly that the baby wants to nurse - and nurse and nurse and nurse- until 10, and again at 12 or 1 or 2 for at least an hour, and then my herd of little elephants thunders across the bedroom ceiling at 6:30 promptly. Of course, some days the baby gets up for the day at 5:30! Yes, I have tried putting her to bed later; no, nothing makes any damn difference because she is a BABY. One day I will sleep train her but she's too little still. Damn it.
2: Because I am always nursing the baby, the boys are left to play upstairs. The big one likes to hold the little one down and punch him, bite him, and leave bleeding scratches on him. This causes me RAGE. Seriously, I can't leave them for five minutes. Bug walks in the door from school and starts hitting his brother.
3: All the accursed nursing problems in the whole world. Ordering the which to make goat milk formula today, I think. The expense makes me grit my teeth, but then again I've spent $350 at least so far on all the accursed nursing problems. Readers, never let anyone tell you breastfeeding is always free.
4: Always nursing! Cannot put the baby down and go mediate! Cannot do any adult thing! Always nursing!
5: Larger children feel neglected and so are SUPER EXTRA AWFUL ALL THE TIME which makes me not want to put the baby down and go mediate. Tatoe screamed at me for two hours yesterday, and whined for another two, which is impressive considering we were only in the house and awake together for four hours. Also, they woke up the baby four times yesterday. Then she screamed at me for hours. Then I want to die.
6: I am tired of all this. Four months seems like FOREVER.
7: (I feel the need to say that he gets up early with the big kids, washes them, puts them to bed, and does the dishes every single night. However...) My dear spouse feels the need to work nine hours every single day. Even when I want to
8: See above, all wrapped into one giant package of longing and financial disadvantage. It's GREAT!
Sweetpea is lucky she is so cute. Bug's behavior is totally not ok, and not representative of how he acts at school (right?). It must be horribly frustrating that you can't trust him for a moment when you need him to be a tiny bit self-sufficient, as you're trapped under the baby. Since I know you have nothing else to do, did you ever figure out the child psychologist in town who takes insurance?
ReplyDeleteAlso, spouses! Sometimes they just don't get it. I haven't come up with a solution to this, except abandon the children with said spouse for a lengthy period of time. Even then, they rarely connect the dots between their difficulties and you're everyday situation.
Did Mr. Dr. Scientist fight with his brother like that?
*your
DeleteThe spouse and his brother fought like cats and dogs.
DeleteThere are some therapists who take insurance but it would cost me $15 each time and.... I think its mainly kid annoyingness. It's better than it was. No, he does none of this at school, of course! If I had more attention to give, or if he slept better, it would be better, but...until then it's tempting to teach T to bite him.
Mr. Dr. Scientist grew up to like his brother, so I suppose there is hope. I have two friends who physically fought with their brothers all the time, and like them as adults. Then there's Patrick, who merely tolerated his sister and still merely tolerates her now. My brother and I would only play-fight, and take care not to harm each other. That's what my two boys do, too. They wrestle, but do not maim. Connor is big enough to hold his own, though. I'd be in favor of teaching T to fight back, maybe B wouldn't start in on him.
DeleteYeah. If this description is at all realistic, your life sounds horrible. And probably you're downplaying it. Sure, I bet there's good stuff. But it often isn't enough, is it?
ReplyDeleteI hope that 3 means you are still considering weaning at 6 months. I know that won't cure all the ills, but it seems like if you could even cure 3, that would result in a better existence. My children are in a phase of heightened conflict right now and it's quite hard. I sometimes feel utterly helpless, plus now they are big into reporting to me the misdeeds of the other, and I am all Why are you telling me this? So I can't imagine how hard it must be to be trapped while yours are having at each other.
Can you find them some summer thing so they are not home all day? I'm sure this genius idea has occurred to you.
It comes and goes. Working on the weaning; at least if she can have bottles sometimes I'll feel less trapped. RIGHT?????
DeleteBug is going to camp for three weeks and I may ship them off to Camp Grandma for a weekend. Tatoe is too little for any of the local camps except for the one the week of my sister's wedding and the super expensive one that requires potty training, whivh hasn't happened yet. Hopefully we'll manage to plan out lots of stuff with our pals so I don't murder them.
I think you would be depressed just because of #1. But you still have 7 more points after that. I hope there is relief on its way, because this seems really much too difficult for any one human being to handle.
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