A few weekends ago, we had what I referred to as a rather
brutal weekend. We were (and still are!)
adjusting to life with 2 kids, I believe it was our 2nd full weekend
at home with Claire. At noon on
Saturday, Annie was acting unusually crankier before her nap. Her forehead felt really warm to the touch
and her temp was 103F+. At first, I
thought maybe she was teething as she has had some of her last back molars
starting to pop thru so I gave her ibuprofen and put her down for her nap. She napped well but woke up again with a
fever. We kept dosing her with ibuprofen
and Saturday night was a bit rough.
Annie was super clingy since she wasn’t feeling good and Claire still
needed tended to twice in the middle of the night. I ended up sleeping in Annie’s bed for the
latter half of the night while Aaron cared for Claire’s second feeding since I
had pumped milk.
I had stopped nursing Claire and started pumping shortly
after we came home from the hospital (which is a whole other story) and had
been pumping in the middle of the nights.
Because I was up a lot Saturday night between the 2 kids, I choose not
to pump at all Saturday night and sleep when I could. Since I didn’t pump for 6+ hours that
Saturday, I woke up with some major clogged ducts. It literally felt like I had golf ball rocks
the lumps were so big and so on top of Annie being super sick still into Sunday
morning, tending to a newborn and all the other weekend chores that were needed
yet, I had to pump every 1.5 to 2 hours to avoid getting metastasis. By afternoon that day, Annie started
vomiting. Aaron and I were wearing down
and heading into our second evening of what was looking like little sleep. Annie couldn’t keep any food down, refused
dinner, couldn’t even keep water down.
She got sick in our bed, which I only own one set of king size sheets so
Aaron and I had to figure out new sleeping arrangements and I had quite a pile
of soiled towels and clothes piling up already.
We were doing our best efforts at keeping Claire as far away from Annie
as possible to keep Annie’s exposure limited but it was hard as Aaron and I
would need to trade-off between each kid or Aaron would have to double up with
both of them while I was hooked up to the pump totally miserable myself with my
bad case of clogged ducts.
I was really worried about Annie, she had never been that
sick before and she was very sluggish.
We ended up setting her up on the floor of our bedroom and I slept next
to her, Aaron slept on the couch and Claire in the Pack N Play. During the night, I awoke to Annie getting
sick. I got up with Claire and fed her. I then had to set my alarm not only to pump
but also another alarm to get up and redose Annie with meds. Sleeping on the floor plus waking up every 45
minutes… not the best night but by 5 am Annie’s fever broke and she kept her
breakfast down. Just in time for Aaron to
catch his afternoon flight to Vegas and drop Annie off at the Grandparents for
a few days. When everyone left Monday
morning, I deep cleaned the house and did the piles of soiled laundry. Totally exhausted by the brutal weekend and
feeling totally worn down, I thought is this what life with 2 is like?! UGH, I don’t know if I can do this!
As things calmed down and I started to get rested back up
and my house started to feel less chaotic, I found some great words of
affirmation from of course no other than my 2 best of friends that give the greatest
advice as usual…
“I do think it gets a bit easier!
Or maybe mama's just grow stronger...and we lower our standards - for sleep,
for cleanliness, for behavior expectations, pretty much for everything! ;) I think you have to be in one of
the most exhausting seasons of
motherhood right now. The lack of sleep makes everything else harder. Hang in
there! You are an awesome Mama!! …”
Gosh I know how true that advice really is. But somehow I still am having a hard time
accepting that I need to lower my standards for that never-ending list of items
that feels like a burden at times. This
is a work in progress for me, to ignore the messes in the house, ignore jumping
to the social media notifications on my phone, learn to pick my battles with
Annie on minor issues, to know that the list of ‘to do’s’ for the weekend may
have items that need to wait until the next weekend… I know that I need to lower my standards
because it’s only at my family’s expense that suffers for my means of wanting
perfection.
And that second chunk
of advice from my other friend…
Some days are easy, some days are
hard. it ebbs and flows in my opinion. In the darkest of days you will find a
smeared hand print on your mirror, or scribbled note in your planner, and smile
. Those are the moments that blur the hard ones. And sleep deprivation never helps......for
the whole house. Hang in there! Praying for you all!
Again, I felt compelled by the truth in this advice. Just the other day I was sitting on the floor
while Claire was on her tummy time mat and I looked over to see one of Annie’s
toys sitting on the floor, it was just the lid to a container in which the lid
has shape cut outs. Who knows where the
container was amongst the mess around me but the lid was on the floor and all
the shapes for the lid were nested right where they belonged in each cut
out. It made me smile and realize how
darn smart Annie is. I then looked over
to see her toy stroller with her stuffed dinosaur in it, it was perfectly
strapped in. It made me feel like I was
doing something right as a Mom… my daughter had buckled her dino in using the
safety straps. Even at night, when I say
“Annie let’s say our prayers”, she instantly folds her hands knowing what we do
when we pray. It really is those moments
that blur the harder ones. It’s those
rewards that makes this parenting thing all worth it when times get tough.
I also stumbled across a few things on social media that really
brought this all home for me. I came
across a Facebook page that a friend liked called ‘Love for Indy.’ I normally don’t click on random pages but
for some reason I did on this one. What
caught my eye is that it’s profile picture was of an ultrasound. I was brought to tears when I read the
page’s backstory:
At their 20 week ultrasound Kevin
and Amy Thurm learned their baby girl Indy has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome
- her left ventricle is very underdeveloped and not working, and her left atria
is also smaller than what it should be. The left side of your heart is
responsible for pumping blood to the entire body, except the lungs. This is the
most severe congenital heart defect a baby can have, the most difficult to
survive, and not curable. At this time Kevin and Amy have decided to celebrate Indy for
as long as she is with them. Amy is due in June and after Indy is born they
will know more as to how long she will be with them, a few days to possibly a
few weeks. At this time we ask for thoughts and prayers to the family. A bank
account has been set up at Denver Savings Bank under the account name
"Love for Indy" for those who wish to donate monetarily. More info to
come as to what we can do as a community to bring comfort to this family in
their time of need.
How quickly it seems I forget at times how lucky we are that
Claire’s 20-week news was not life threatening and we only had the potential of
a life altering situation but thru answered prayers, she was born perfectly
healthy. It’s stories like these that
makes me think why did I just have a pity party for myself after a rough
weekend? My ‘brutal’ weekend pales in
comparison to what this family endures week after week as they know what
challenges lie ahead for them. Thank you
God that I am not facing news of only being with my babies for only a short
time. Each day with them is a gift.
And then literally the very next day… I had been following
another girl recently on Facebook. And I
had been actually surfing her website the prior days checking out some of her
posts (which I’m loving her blog by the way!).
And in doing so, I came across an older blog post of hers that had me in
complete sobs. Try reading this without
completely losing it. It really put
things in perspective for me. (Click
link/or copy):
I know more brutal weekends lie ahead for us. And I think it is okay for me to call them
what they are… tough, brutal, challenging, defeating at times… things certainly
aren’t all rosy and happy in our house 24/7, but I also need to remind myself
to have perspective. Perspective that
our challenges are usually pretty surface level and we are very blessed with
each day and to remind myself of this in those moments, even when my 2 year-old
covers me in vomit and my newborn is crying hysterically. Those hard days are only temporary and for
that I am grateful.
No comments:
Post a Comment