Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Hard Times

This is a depressing post so skip it if you are in a good mood or don't want to listen to me complain.

I don't know if it is the weather, the holidays or what but I am seriously in a funk. I am so blah and unmotivated to do anything. Work is just going along, our project got defeated so I am back to bored. Our families are fighting with us and throwing guilt trips about the holidays. I am feeling very anti-social lately. I don't want to go to any of the holiday obligations and parties. I got a migraine again before my work holiday party. Being a working mother and motherhood in general sucks right now. I hope that things look up and change after the holidays are over.

The families fighting over time for the holidays has me really angry, stressed and sad. We had it all planned out and now we are expected to go to one more place. So we have solved the problem for the next year and beyond. We are leaving town on Christmas Day. We figure there won't be much traffic on the actual day in the afternoon/evening. We will find someplace to stay until the new year. We don't even care where, we just need to have a fun time for Christmas for once. This is a major problem with having all our family close and they don't want to spread it out. They all expect it to be within the few days we have off and it is too much, especially with a little one. C didn't nap at all on Thanksgiving because of all the noise and people at both houses we went to and we paid for it on Friday. They don't understand or care about this. They just want to see C. I understand that, but that is why we made our house open on Christmas Day so they can stop over whenever they would like. We can keep C's schedule and they can see him on Christmas Day. They still expect us to travel around even with our little baby.

This has made me blue, depressed and short tempered. Rich & I are arguing more and I am short on patience with C. He is paying for my bad moods in that I am disinterested in him. C is whiny and cranky all the time right now. He is frustrated because he can't get to stuff that he wants. He is starting to do a slow army crawl but he wants so much stuff and can't get to it or he isn't allowed to have it. He is also teething with 4 teeth visible which adds to the crank. I do not want to be with him or spend time with him right now. He is not napping at daycare, going to bed as soon as we get home and then gets mad because we have to wake him up to eat dinner. He is getting up really early and I am so not a morning person. It is so trying.

I feel like a horrible mother because I am just not wanting to be with C right now at all. I do not feel like doing things with him and everything seems to be a battle right now. Diaper changes, playing, going in the car, going to bed are all battles. Everyday all the time we are with him he is whining or crying. I hope this phase goes by soon.

Daycare is annoying the crap out of me. I am so aggravated with them and their "opinions" on what is best for C. They have cornered us a few times on things we are doing that they don't like. They are badgering us about feeding him more often. He is still a baby, not even 8 months old yet. We think they want to stuff him full so he will leave them alone. I think he wants more interaction time and they can't give it to him. Two new babies will be coming in before the end of the year because one boy is leaving for the next room and another is being forced out. I know that C will not be ready for the next room at 10 months. One of the boys is ready for sure, he is almost walking. The other is not doing that, is barely crawling and is very needy. I think we may look at our options after the first of the year. Start looking at other daycare centers or sitters.

Rich really wants me to stay home and we have talked about this possibility before. I just don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can tolerate the whining, crying and bad days all day. I don't know if it is a good thing for either of us for me to stay at home.

I have cut down on the caffeine for the migraines and I am exhausted all the time. I do not want to be social and I want to stay by myself in my cube and my house. I am not a fun person to be around right now so my apologies if you have to be around me. This is just me right now. I am no fun.

7 comments:

Sarah D said...

I am so sorry you are having a hard time. I know it isn't easy having a baby who is grumpy. It will get better. I am sure you get told that all the time and it is hard to believe sometimes, but it really will get better and you will get to enjoy your little guy. I love being home with Ethan. Yes, he has bad days. Especially now because he is teething but I wouldn't change it for the world. You could always try to stay home with him if you wanted to and if you felt you needed to get away you could always go back to work. When Ethan gets grumpy, it is hard, but I tell myself that he just needs extra love today and I try to be as patient as possible. I know it is hard for you but do not beat yourself up. You are a great mommy! Everyone has times where they feel like you do. I really hope you start feeling up soon! As for the holidays thing, maybe you just need to tell them how you feel. They should respect his schedule and try to work around it if they want to see him. Terry and I didn't go to my grandmas house this year for Thanksgiving because it would interfere with his bedtime and we just got him to sleep through the night. You have to do what is right for him and who cares if they get mad they should understand that it is all done in his best interest.

Please let us know if you need anything! We are always here for you guys!

Serenity said...

*hug* I'm sorry you're in a funk.

FWIW, C's grumpiness might be related to hunger. No joke, Baby O fussed and fussed through a weekend with us, until finally I started feeding him more (literally it was to see if SOMETHING worked). And to my surprise? He was hungry. I fed him more than I thought he'd ever eat (he's eating three meals of solids each day plus three bottles), and within two days he was back to his sunny and happy self.

Might be worth a shot to see if things improve with C.

*hug* I things start looking up for you soon hon.

xxx

MrsSpock said...

I agree the full-time working thing sucks. Staying at home was hard too, though. We never had enough money and even though we never argued about it, I worried about it all the time. I am enjoying getting out of the house. I think it's made a lot easier that DH is watching J, and our parenting philosophies are very similar. I know he gets loved on all day, has G to play with, and gets out of the house for storytime and music classes as well.

J, too, was very grumpy and whiny before he got the crawling thing down pat. Once he figures out how to get into everything, he should be able to play independently for a good while at a time.

How much are you feeding C? J gets 24-40 oz formula plus 2 meals of solids a day (cereal plus fruit in the AM and cereal plus veggie in the PM).

ohioana said...

Anytime we have ever felt like avoiding our baby, it's been because we felt totally overwhelmed. So it could just be all the holiday stress you described adding to the burdens you normally carry. If that doesn't sound like it, maybe you should start thinking about ways you can take care of yourself. I'm not sure exactly what that means. For me as a stay-at-homer, it means being in a book club and hanging out with my friends a lot. For you as someone who works a full-time job, the answer might be different.

As for working vs. not, I don't think either choice is 100% right for anyone. I definitely have bad days with the choice I've made, but I also have a reasonable plan for re-entering the work force as well as one or two wild fantasies that involve a lot of wealth. If you do decide to take a break to be with your boy, maybe it would help you to create some kind of a plan for how you would get back into the job market. That has been the thing that helped me the most.

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