Thoughts

Amity has a cold- last night she woke up at 1am with a fever and crying and crying, she wouldn't nurse (couldn't! Her nose was too stuffy) and just so sad. I had to sucker out her nose. I just about cried myself. I dont' remember Riley crying like that, in terror and absolute heartbreak that Mommy would do some thing so awful when she wasn't feeling well. It nearly broke my heart.

It's so much easier to sucker out the nose of an angry and annoyed baby (though still hard and no fun!). Than the nose of one that looks at you with such shock.

I've been trying to put my finger on some things. You know, I'm tired. We've it's been a rough few months. Some weeks Ryan and I wonder how we're going to survive. And I don't really think I'm being melodramatic. Taking care of meeting the physical and emotional needs of two little people is absolutely exhausting. Add that on top of extended family stress, making all the needs and necessities squeeze into our budget, sickness, and you've got a little too much happening. A very stretching time for both of us.

I guess my thoughts have to do with "attachment parenting". It was such a focus for me with RJ, growing a strong attachment with her- am I meeting her needs well? Is she attached? Lots of questioning and figuring it all out. Nothing wrong with that! She was my one and only and my world for a full 10months. She was IT. Then I got pregnant with Amity and my heart and mind slowly started making room for another. That process was a whole different line of thought and discussion.

Since Amity arrived- it's like what do terms really matter? What's best for my children? What WORKS for us? What brings us balance? HOW DO WE SURVIVE THIS YEAR? I don't ask "is she attached? is this normal? Am I doing this right?" like I did with Riley. I don't know if that's "normal" first-time Mom questions but it was where I was at.

This time I realize, she is attached. She came out of me- in her mind she's still part of me, of COURSE she's attached! What is normal? And as for doing this right: nope probably not some of the time but I'm doing my best and that's what's important.

I also have a huge perspective of sleep. Whenever I think of Riley's first year I think of the glaring sleep deprivation. Now, I had a lot of physical things I was recovering from in Riley's first year- major abdominal surgery, plus health complications: liver enzyme levels over 1000 (normal is between 7 and 40) and all that gall baldder craziness PLUS the flu, PLUS breastfeeding (which was very hard to get established), PLUS adjusting to motherhood and trying to mother a high needs baby...All while trying to recover from the above and deal with the aftermath of the c/s. Well it's a lot, there is no wonder I was a zombie there for a while.

But also the frustion of never sleeping more than 2 or 3 hours at night, ever. I think around 2 months (when we were in the hospital- so it was probably the drugs I was on!) she started sleeping longer stretches. Then it was back to every 45min-2hours all night every night. Now that is hard for any mother. It's hard right now, as Amity is doing the same thing. BUT this time I have this perspective: I expect it. I expect sleep to be rough at this age- if you take into account every thing they are learning they go from being little 7-9lb helpless, flailing, adorable bundles to being able to WALK and say WORDS in ONE SHORT YEAR (well some times they walk and talk a little later but STILL)!!!! Why in the world would I expect anything less than short sleep spans!

This perspective has helped my sanity so very much of late. This too shall pass. I don't expect to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time (longer than 45 minutes WOULD be very nice but that's okay it's only for a time)... All too soon she'll be grown, she'll wean, she'll be running around telling me stories and destroying every thing she can get her hands on (or at least pulling every thing that I carefully placed on some thing DOWN and leaving it around the room).

This too shall pass really is true.

I am thankful that my first few months with Amity were very restful, no catastrophes, no huge illnesses 2-4 (some times 6-7!) hours of sleep was wonderful...And now we dive into the marathon of milestones! She'll be walking before I know it, right?