This last week has quite possibly been the most challenging week of motherhood I’ve experienced yet. Any one thing doesn’t seem so overwhelming, but things have converged into a perfect storm of sorts as of late.
Isaac has been fussier than usual. I think he’s teething, or growth spurting, or both. There have been moments where I’ve wondered where my sweet, happy baby went, and it’s made for some long days. I’ve been working a lot more. This is a good thing, but juggling my various avenues of income has been hectic. More work, means more evenings spent in the office, which means more late nights, and less sleep.
When I’m tired, I get more paranoid, which means more getting out of bed during the night to check on Isaac, cause sometimes I just can’t see him breathing on that dang video monitor!
This cycle went round and round, resulting in me getting more and more tired, until I reached a point last week of sheer exhaustion. We’re talking an achy, emotional, crying, frustrated, irritable mess of a mama. That’s not good for anyone. Luckily, just when I thought I might lose it completely, I had reinforcements in the form of grandparents come over for day visits. I was able to get caught up not only on sleep, but on some work as well. God bless them!
I’ve learned from all this that sleep is my linchpin. If I don’t get enough, everything else will fall apart. It’s something I’m determined to be mindful of going forward. It seems silly. I anticipated being tired with a newborn, but for some reason, I’m shocked by how tired I am now, at 4 months. I mean, he’s sleeping through the night on a pretty regular basis, so I did not see this coming.
I cannot even imagine how exhausted I’d be if I had gone back to my 9 to 5. My hat goes off to you mamas who work outside the home. I don’t know how you function.
Like everything else, I know this is a phase, that will soon be outgrown, and we’ll move on to the next. Hopefully, it comes with more rest. Or more hours in the day. Or, at least, more coffee.
