Wake (for the last time) to nurse Scarlett at 7:00 AM. Hear birds chirping, see sunshine, and feel invigorated. Resolve to get all housework done in first three hours of day so we can go to the park after Lucy's nap. Want to be out enjoying the springtime. Feel good and motivated. Get up and get Lucy breakfast at 8. She munches a little of her bowl of cereal, decides she doesn't want it, dumps it out of the bowl, goes everywhere. Am trying to burp Scarlett while L is making the mess. Know I have to clean up mess immediately or it will grow exponentially. Put Scarlett down to clean up mess. Go back to burping Scarlett after looking Lucy in the eye and telling her "this is a no-no." She starts repeating "no-no!" to me. L starts begging for chocolate milk once I'm back to S. Burp S a little more, put her down and warm Lucy up a sippy cup of ovaltine. Get pork chops out of freezer and put them on kitchen counter. Want to try a new crock pot pork recipe, go to internet to look at recipes. Hear S fussing, she's been swallowing quite a bit of air while nursing and burping wasn't too successful. Get her to burp and calm her down. Come back out to Lucy sitting on kitchen counter with kitchen sink faucet turned on full blast, splashing water this way and that. Get her down, turn water off. Look for ingredients of recipes. Don't have complete ingredients for a single one. Hear S crying from other room, don't see Lucy. Go into room to find L doing the "human blanket" to S. Tell L to knock it off, pick S up and go back into kitchen to root through cupboards and pantry again. Give up on dream of new pork chops recipe, need to get them out of my face now. Put them in Tupperware and throw them in fridge. Notice bad raspberries in fridge. Notice lots of bad stuff. Start chucking things into garbage. Go into bedroom and put S on bed. Can't see Lucy. Find her. She's closed herself into the bathroom linen closet, has box of Q-tips strung out. Ask her what her problem is. Gather up Q-tips and stash them back in closet. Notice Edward Scizzorhands in mirror. Tell him he's not welcome. But that I like his bathrobe. Pick up S again. Smell something. S needs a diaper change. Go to changing table, Lucy crawls up into pack and play bassinet and stands next to changing table to "help". Her job is to pull diaper straps off. We change the diaper and I smell something even worse. Lucy needs a diaper change. I ask her if she has a doodie and she grabs her bum and runs away from me yelling no. Chase her down. Start to change diaper and notice a little diaper rash. Apply desatin. See Mother's day card from Jason sitting on my nightstand. Re-read it. Hear S start to fuss. She is hungry again. Can it already be that time? Sit in rocker to nurse her in family room. Lucy want to watch super why and sit on my lap, too. Both in lap, nursing S, arm wrestling L with one arm because she keeps trying to jam a pacifier in Scarlett's mouth while she's latched on. Text Jason at work, "I don't really believe what you wrote in my mother's day card. The part about you being impressed at how well I've transitioned to having two babies. I think you just thought that sounded like a good thing to say, but I just don't know if I believe you've been "impressed" by me." Press send. Almost time for L's nap, but she decides she's hungry now even though shed been so wasteful and ungrateful before. Finish nursing Scarlett, make Lucy a spinach scrambled egg and sit her in her high chair. Go back to burp S. Hear phone, read Jason's response, "You're silly. I think you're doing great." I respond, "How would you know?" Smell something again. S needs another d change. Change it, Lucy starts shrieking in protest because she can see I'm changing it without her aid. S is wide awake, time for L's nap. Tell her "let's go night night". Put S in her swing and put a pacifier in her mouth. Lucy is hand fighting me again because she is trying to get the paci out of Scarlett's mouth. I nudge her out of the way with hips/rear, she yells at me protesting and starts to fake cry. I tell her to stop faking and she starts laughing. L and mommy go into L's room. I get another text, "Both girls are doing great so that's the main thing." I resist texting back and telling him that was another thing he just thought sounded like a good thing to say. Rock Lucy for 5 seconds, while speed reading her a book, skipping multiple pages because I can hear that S is going beyond fussing, she is starting to cry. Put L in her crib, tell her night night and that I love her, give her her book to read and close the door. Pick S up out of swing and realize she is all hot and sweaty. Strip her down to diaper, notice she needs another diaper change. Change it, sit back down, think about my grand ambitions for the day and start to cry a bit. Think about full hampers of dirty clothes, see dirty dishes, toys strewn about family room, and layer of finger paintin' dust on mantle above fire place. Feel claustrophobic. Cry a little more. Then it morphs into more of a laugh-cry, like a schizophrenic maniac. :)
This run down is for when Jason gets home from work this evening and inevitably asks what I did today. I will sit there, silently spacing out, eyed glazed over staring blankly at the wall because I wont be able to think of a single thing that I did.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, this sequence of events below is a little indication of what would be happening to poor Scarlett if I wasn't standing guard 25 hours a day. That's right, 25 hours a day. Starts out relatively peaceful. And then quickly spirals out of control into a WWE- style display of dominance and power.
9 comments:
Meradith!!! Don't stress too bad! You'll get the hang of it, GOSH- give yourself a break! It gets better I promise! I Must tell you though...hahahahha, I had to laugh. Your first 5 hours sounds alot like my whole day sometimes. I was laughing till I saw that you cried and then I felt bad for laughing. But its all too familiar. It'll get better. I promise.
Now this sounds kind of "materialistic" but have you ever considered not breast feeding? I seriously think that helped me out a TON. But I know some people are set on breast feeding. What is your email???
Sounds like you're becoming a great juggler. That's a useful skill for a mom of two to have!
LOVE those pictures. I should buy a doll like that for Harmony, though it sounds like Lucy thinks Scarlett is much more exciting.
Been there. It gets easier, I promise, but not before some tremendously suck-tastic days/weeks/months like this. You'll be glad you write this out 10 years from now. Hang in there.
Oh my goodness...that was like reading my diary right now! Mason just turned 3 weeks yesterday and Addy will be 2 next month and that is exactly how's it's been transitioning into 2 for me too! I love the pictures!!
That sequence of pics is the best! They describe themselves!! She is the cutest...
Sorry about your day, but if it makes you feel any better you are definitely NOT alone. I sit there some days and think about all that needs to get done on top of taking care of kids and it's so overwhelming. And newborns are just plain hard! It will get better, not easier, but better!! You are awesome, and I LOVE reading your posts like this because they are so relatable.
And it took me WAY too long to write this comment because Brody is literally on my lap shoving balls down my shirt and punching whatever he pleases on the keyboard!! ;)
I like to send texts to Josh that require a more thoughtful response than he could possibly write via text, and then get irritated when he inevitably fails to text back a thoughtful response. Sometimes I think Jason and Josh should join a support group...but not for them--for us. Each meeting would begin with a brief summary of an amazing thing their wives did that week, followed by a session full of tips and ideas on how to nurture us and dote on us to the level we deserve.
Sounds like you've now been fully initiated into the "my-children-now-outnumber-me" club. It does get easier, but if I may, ahem, offer my two cents worth it is this: Abandon any expectation for the next few weeks about what you need to get done aside from keeping those darling girls alive. Everything else will come in time. You are doing marvelously, even though it is a thankless (and utterly exhausting) venture. One last thought that I love:
“The biggest mistake I made as a mother is the one that most of us make. … I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” (Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).
-Author Anna Quindlen
Your girls will never be this little and so utterly dependent on you as they are now. Try to treasure it, for these moments are fleeting! The park will be there, the dishes can wait, etc.!
Hang in there!
oh you make me laugh so dang hard. gee I wish I were you cause then i'd enterntain myself so dang much all day that i would never need to watch another comedian for the rest of my laugh. especially edward scissorhands, but yes you liked his robe.
are you mad at me I didn't tell you this was coming in more full detail? i can relate. i can so relate.
4 months is a magical age.
Dear Meradith,
It doesn't get easier. You just get used to not accomplishing what you thought you wanted to accomplish. I know it doesn't make sense--just like loving a second baby as much as the first doesn't make sense. Take naps.
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