Monday, July 1, 2013

Seven Months

We're having kind of a rough go of it lately.

T-Rex stopped sleeping through the night a couple months ago. He went two weeks never sleeping longer than two hours and mostly it was between sixty and ninety minutes. He was teething and we had started giving him Real Food, which seemed to cause him stomach troubles. We stopped the food and he's gone back to sleeping between two and three hours at a time. Which at first seemed great compared to one hour, but now is terrible, especially when he used to sleep nine hours a night. All three of us wake up angry and yelling over and over again.

T-Rex has gotten grumpier, too, though he only has the two teeth. He's quicker to get frustrated with being left to sit and play. He whines a lot. He's heavy and he's grabby and he's only happy being held while walking around. Which is an exaggeration; he's happy most of the time still. But he gets grumpy and he doesn't want to be held while you're sitting. He doesn't want to be held while standing still. He has to be moving around. I vacuum a lot.

In the middle of that, after the two weeks of basically no sleep, I got really sick. I had pink eye in both eyes, a sinus infection, and then two rounds of a stomach bug. I had a fever for a week straight. I would sit in bed staring at T-Rex while he screamed because he was bored of playing in the bed, and I would pick him up and stagger downstairs and it would take me half an hour to change his diaper.

I don't remember much of that week and what I do remember I'm not entirely sure is true. Fevers are like that, I guess.

We ran through our entire stash of frozen pumped milk sending T-Rex off to spend the day with his grandma or having his dad watch him overnight so I could sleep. When the stomach bug hit at the end of the week, I stopped producing entirely (not to mention was completely incapable of sitting up to nurse him at that point), and we had to give him formula. Apparently he made awful faces and refused to eat it at first, but eventually he did, and then he even slept through the entire night while at his grandparents' house.

He seems to be waking up because he's hungry, but our forays into feeding him Real Food mostly seem to give him stomachaches. I think my supply is still low from being sick, and it doesn't seem to matter how much oatmeal I eat or fenugreek I take. So I don't know. I guess we'll all just be tired and short-tempered for awhile.

I guess this is a lot of complaining. But if you could hear me saying this, instead of reading me write it, I'm not whining. It's just facts. It's the way things are right now. So it goes.

There are lots of other things to complain about, too: work, friends, church. But I'm sure it's boring enough to listen to my problems with the baby, so I'll spare you the rest.

At least I'm reading a lot. So there's that.

Here's a picture to make up for the complaining:

Eating eggs.

2 comments:

  1. Oh dear. That sounds absolutely dreadful. I'm so sorry to hear all that! Goodness! I find mothering challenging on my good days; I can't imagine doing it while sick. (I honestly have not been ill a single day since Lydia was born almost two years ago. I really need to say a special prayer of thanks for that).

    We've definitely woken up all yelling at each other, though. Lydia's been sleeping like crap lately (molars), and that makes us all SO GRUMPY which makes us SO MEAN. Yesterday was one of the worst days yet -- I was actually running in circles away from Lydia's whining and outstretched hands, yelling, "No! I've had enough! I just can't do it anymore!!" (Man, was I tired.)

    Here's hoping and praying for more restful nights, healing, and restoration for your whole family. Thanks for being vulnerable and sharing. *Hugs.*

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Kathleen. I am stubbornly healthy; I hadn't had a stomach bug since high school (and only once then) and only rarely even catch colds worth mentioning. I have asthma and allergies and get migraines and I simply refuse to host other forms of illness. But with the no sleep and the stress and the busyness and the worry, my body decided I needed to rest and it didn't care if it had to kill me to make me do it. Blah.

      Also? I am so glad to hear that you get grumpy with Lydia, too. Because when I'm upset I always think of all the gentle parenting type blogs I read and think, man, I give up. I can't even speak kindly to this poor little infant. So that makes me feel better. I know none of us are perfect, but it's easy to think that I'm the least perfect, if you know what I mean. :-)

      Thank you. We are definitely doing better now. For now. Heh. *Hugs* right back.

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