Reality Check

I’m pretty sure that just about every time I post about how things are going well, my baby’s sleeping, life is good, yadayadayada, I should expect that within a day or so I will want to eat my words!  Ha!  Actually, I’m not really laughing over here.  It has been a rough couple of days. 

I would like to think that at this point, we are beginning to find our stride with two children, but alas, I feel very far from that right now.  For some unfortunate reason, my dear daughter has decided to make long naps a thing of the past—now, I am lucky to get an hour out of her.  And a nap at the same time as her brother?  Forget about it.  I’m also just generally frustrated that it seems my children must ultimately cry to go to sleep.  I would just like to ask why that must be so?  I mean, I don’t feel like that’s the case for everyone, right? 

I find myself so torn between different baby/sleep-rearing schools of thought.  On the one hand, I’ve found that I seem to be more “attachment”-minded this go round.  I love having Holland near, I enjoyed co-sleeping for the first couple of months (and the times when we still do it now), and philosophically, I don’t feel nearly as sure that crying it out is ok for babies (especially when they’re brand new).  On the other hand, I do believe that it’s my job to help Holland learn to sleep well, and I think there’s value in her learning to soothe herself.  While I’m not proud of the fact that I let Wade cry himself to sleep when he was but a month old, he is now an excellent sleeper who has maybe woken up in the night two or three times within the past year!  Granted, I don’t think crying it out that young had much of an effect on his sleep now (b/c he continued to cry himself to sleep until he was about 18 months old…), but I still think he has really healthy sleep habits now, and I want that for Holland too. 

Anyway, I’m clearly rambling, but I do just feel so conflicted.  When, really, I just want what’s best for my babies!   Holland sleeps in her crib now, but getting up twice at night to feed her in a #$%! rocking chair has left me exhausted.  I think this is partly my fault for going to bed so late…I’m a night owl, so by the time I’m ready for bed, it’s nearly time for her first wake up, so what’s the point in going to sleep?!  Short daytime naps that don’t occur when Wade’s sleeping leave little room for mama to snooze during the day. 

And speaking of Wade, please allow me a little pity party for myself and let me tell you what a bad mother I feel like I have been to this boy in my sleep-deprived, busy-with-an-infant state.   This dear boy (who actually hasn’t been acting too “dear” these past few days, but that’s another sob story…) spends much of his time playing independently, and I know he’d like my company.  But when Holland goes down for a nap, I feel I must seize upon the opportunity to shower.  And before I know it, she is up needing to eat.  I hate that he seems so bored and just asks to watch videos all the time.  I have major mama guilt whenever he’s watching tv.  The voice in my head just tells me that if I were a better mother--more creative, energetic, then my child would not be sitting in front of the tv.  You should see how desperately Wade waited for his daddy to get home today.  I’m pretty sure he’d given up on me.  I was trying  to prepare dinner while wearing a dozing baby who really needed to sleep finally, and so I had nothing to give my boy.  Ugh.  How do people do it?  (Seasoned mamas feel free to chime in!)

Alright, sorry for being such a debbie downer, but I feel I must keep it real around here.  I just can’t have anyone reading this blog walking away thinking those Worthingtons have got it all together!  It is days like today that I am reminded of what a gift it is that God loves me and deems me beautiful to Him in spite of what a lame job I might be doing as a mother/wife/friend/etc. 

Ok, enough words.  I know  many of you come here for the pictures of my babes.  And while life has been tough lately, there have been many fun times as well.   So I will share some snapshots of life around here over the past week or so.

We had a couple really warm days, so we broke out the new sand and water table that Wade’s Grammy and PopPop gave him for his birthday.  Wade really enjoyed scooping and dumping sand and water back and forth from side to side.  I bet we’re going to spend quite a bit of time with this once it’s consistently warm out.

Holland got carried around with the {clean} diapers in the laundry basket.  Hey, a women’s got to multi-task!

Though, it seems I can’t blame this on having multiple children, because it looks like I pulled the same move on Wade when he was just a wee one…

{My little guy was just over two months old here!}

We had a little incident with some rasberry jam…the jar fell to the ground in such a way that its contents jolted out with great force.  So much force that I found jam on the ceiling!  So, what do you do if you are the mother and it is your job to handle situations such as this?  Why, you take pictures of course!

 

{do you spy the spot of jam in the above photo?!}

And then your child runs away and tries to hide from you because he thinks you’re acting crazy (you are)…

We tried a little finger painting activity (in the basement)…Wade preferred dumping the paint in the water over actually using it on the paper. 

Mom came to visit and some of our neighborhood pals joined us for a pleasant afternoon in our front yard.

  

Hey, it’s VannyB and sweet little Taylor, both born within weeks of Miss Thang :)

Holland tried to decide whether she wanted to snack on Sophie(thanks Katie!!)

while Mama worked on baking cupcakes…

  

And then today, this is the face I got to enjoy looking up at me while I worked on dinner.  Thank you, Lord, for moments like this.