Hello to my mom, my husband, and my two best friends who read this blog 🤣
Life in general is pretty great right now. These antidepressants that I denied myself for far too long are doing the Lord's work. I am more mentally and emotionally stable. I am able to have hard conversations while clearly communicating my feelings and not being overrun by them. I am able to see hard moments for what they are: moments. Even a hard evening is the equivalent of seconds of my life when I look at the overall scheme of things. I have to acknowledge that my feelings are a bit capped, which is strange. There have been things that have made me want to cry but my body couldn't produce the tears. There have been moments when I want to be mad but I'm not able actually access anger. It's like of like the emotional minefield that was my brain previously has now been excavated. There may be a few remaining devices but they've been duds so far. It's definitely an odd feeling. I've always been very emotional - for better or for worse. I haven't shed an actual tear since I started this medicine. I think that is legitimately a personal record of mine. This isn't a negative. It's just new. I do still feel my feelings; I am happy, sad, mad and other things. I'm just not overwhelmed or run by them now. Maybe this is how most people feel. Maybe this is emotional regulation.
A few weeks ago, we had a very difficult evening with the kids. Actually, from nap time on was pretty rough. We had some weather come through yesterday and the school district closed for the safety of students and staff, so RB was home with us. In case you're confused, I am indeed the type of mom who keeps their toddler on their existing daycare (or school, as we call it in our household) schedule while I am on maternity leave. It's what's best for our family. Perhaps social media would disagree, but they are not members of our householsd. LJ struggles to sleep as much as he needs when his big brother toddler is running around being his silly, crazy self. That day, they both went down for a nap around noon, but LJ even struggled to stay asleep then, even without the chaos. He was probably already overtired.
RB is likely going through a growth spurt. He's been exhausted lately. His shoes are sudden very tight. His round toddler belly is flattening and he's eating a lot. He is tall enough to reach new things. Everything on our refrigerator must be hung higher and higher to keep them out of his reach. With this growth spurt has some some grumpiness, which is compounded by general toddlerness. His favorite word right now is "Nooooo!" The night before, he was in such a great mood. He was the most hyper we've ever seen him. He ran around the kitchen, probably did twenty laps, with Beau to get rid of some of his energy. He was actually tired at bedtime so let's all raise a roast to Daddy because he did the work, y'all.
The hard night, though, that was really rough on everyone. RB fought me pretty much all afternoon, in and out of fussing and pretty much refusing everything we offered him. Juice? No. Milk? No. Snack? No. Watch doggies on TV? No. (Currently we are watching a lot of Puppy Dog Pals). LJ was overtired and pissed. He cried on and off for hours. He sounds like an angry cat when he cries. It's not the most pleasant, but in his defense he really doesn't cry that often (at least not compared to newborn RB). When bedtime rolled around, that's when shit got real. You know that gif of the dog that's sitting in a burning building, drinking his coffee, and saying "This is fine"? That was Beau and I. I do bedtime with RB and Beau hangs out with LJ on the evenings. This particular evening, both boys set out to break their assigned parents spirit. RB gave me hell, and continued to voice his dismay after he laid down. He did finally fall asleep. LJ was up next. He was pretty mad during everything but his bath - the boy loves water. He finally went to sleep but struggled to stay asleep. Finally, by the grace of the gods, he committed to the bit and went to sleep around nine. After that, Beau and I had some well deserved drinks on the porch and tried to remind ourselves how much we love these boys, even when they are showing us their whole ass.
Other than that night, things are pretty stable around here right now. We've had a friend of RB's over for a few playdates which has been awesome. They love playing together and it tires them out with we all appreciate. I've also had the opportunity to become friends with his friends mom. Dare I say I've made my first mom friend? Let's not jinx it.
I also managed to get the motivation to take the boys to the library last weekend. I'd like that to be our Saturday morning activity. RB loves it and it's great to get him out of the house. LJ is still figuring it out, but he does better each time we go. We're blessed to have a really cool library with a large space for kids, and they've got lots of toys RB likes to explore. I had taken him a few times when I was pregnant, but I've been lacking quite a bit since LJ joined us. I'm desperate to get back to my old level of energy and give these boys the best I can, but some days I am honestly spent from the moment I wake up.
Needless to say, we're still not sleeping much. We are sleeping more, so there's that. LJ slept last night from 12:30 to 4, which was pretty great, and then he woke up around 7:40, which is right around the time RB wakes up. I made the decision to go ahead and move LJ up to his room recently too, in hopes that it'll help him sleep better. When he was in our room, he really struggles to fall asleep because we don't have curtains and only have blinds, and since the sun doesn't go down until around 9 o'clock right now, he would doze off, then wake up thinking it was day time. We also would be in and out of our room all evening, because, well, it's got all our stuff in it. The dogs would bark in the backyard. The neighbors dogs bark a lot too. He was just constantly getting interrupted and it was affecting his daytime sleep too. So, a few nights ago, he spent his first night in his room. It has blackout curtains. It's nice and cool, and has a sound machine, and a humidifier. I recognize that some people may that we've moved him to his room before six months. This is the best decision for our family and for our son. He needs his sleep and his space, and honestly he's been sleeping better (but not yet longer 💔) in his own room. We watch him like a hawk on the baby monitor, and I still go in there multiple times a night to feed him and change him.
This was written weeks before posting. Not sure why I didn't just publish. No conclusion here. I'm just going to, as my husband would say, "send it".
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