Insecurities and doubts

Two weeks ago tomorrow, BG started rolling over. Now it's impossible to keep her in one place. A couple times over the past few days, I've left her napping on my bed (which is actually just a mattress on the floor) and discovered when I returned after only a few minutes that she had spun 90 degrees and rolled a couple of times. Tonight when I went to take my shower, I placed her little sleeping body in her crib, rather than leaving her on my bed. It's probably only the fourth time she's slept in her crib.

Now it's 23:24... I want to go to bed, but I can't bring myself to go to bed without her. Sure, her crib is within spitting distance of my bed, but I feel like a bad mother for not having here right here with me. However, waking her up to bring her to bed with me feels selfish.

The need I have to be close to these two children all the time is amazing. I've been thinking about what life will be like once BG also starts going to XH's place every other weekend. I feel a bit panicky when I think about it. The logical part of me knows that the break will be good for me. The attached part of me screams in pain. I keep reminding myself that it's a year away. Longer if I continue nursing as long as I'd like to. Unfortunately though, a lot of my ideals were blown away with the separation (remember the SAHM plan?) It's easy for someone with an even somewhat supportive spouse to say, "If you really wanted to, you could do it." I think I'm doing damn good, considering everything. But I know I could do better with more support.

All that said, it's not like I don't have any support. My family and friends have rallied around me. I have the best XH I could possibly ask for (Four months ago I didn't think I'd ever say that.) Perhaps if it weren't for these people, I wouldn't be doing such a damn good job.

BG isn't in my arms as often as I'd like her to be. I wear her in the wrap as much as I can. I hold her as often as I can. I nurse her as soon as she shows any signs of wanting to be nursed. But she often ends up napping in the swing. I feel guilty about that. I feel like this is where I'm really falling down. But, BB needs attention too. BG's swing-naps are the times where BB and I cuddle on the couch under a blanket and read stories, or play with blocks on the floor without distraction. That's my only chance for one-on-one time with him. He needs that too. I wish I could do everything. I really do. But I'm trying my best.

I often feel like I'm living in two worlds. There's the world where I try (and fail) to be Super-Mom. Then there's the world where cuddles is trying to find a man. The two worlds don't seem to compliment one another. The latter is part of the reason why I feel like I'm failing at the former. I think for the time being, I'm going to put the profile in the pond on hold... I'll continue being interested in who I'm currently interested in, but for now, any further intentional searching needs to be put on hold. I'm not sure how long I can maintain that attitude - the search has often provided me with a necessary distraction, and some hope for the future. It's easy to put it on hold when there's someone who may be interested in me. But when that doesn't work out, will I continue to feel this way?

One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. Follow my gut. Do what feels right.

Mmmmm... Donuts

I want a Tim Horton's chocolate dipped donut.  Not one.  Six.  Maybe even a dozen.  I'm not a fan of Timmy Ho's coffee, but wow, I'm craving one of their donuts right now.  I don't think I've had one since the last tournament I went away to...  about a year and a half ago.   

I've been a bottomless pit the past two days.  I can't get enough to eat.  Yet the scales keep going lower and lower.  I now weigh less than I did when I got pregnant.  The difference is that I was fit and had muscle when I got pregnant.  Right now, it's all saggy and droopy.  But tonight when I was stripping down to get in the shower, I glimpsed myself and was surprised at how thin I am beneath the droopiness.  I think I ate about a half dozen muffins yesterday.  Thank goodness I'm making quadruple batches of them right now.  I've credited breast feeding for helping me to lose all of the pregnancy weight, so I guess I have BB's ravenous appetite to thank for the continuing loss.  It's the only explanation I can come up with for the insatiable hunger I've been feeling these past two days.  

I had my yearly dentist appointment today.  I really like my dentist, but I truly hate the dentist.  Does that make sense?  She's really nice, but I had a dentist as a kid who wrecked me for life when it comes to dentists.  I've also had a terrible, skin-crawling GP experience too, that I've been having a lot of flashbacks to recently, but I digress.  That's a topic for another post.  Maybe.  I was happy to hear that I once again don't have any cavities, so I (hopefully) won't have to set foot in her office for another year.  Next year I'm taking BB with me for his first appointment, so I'll have to pretend that I LOVE being poked, prodded and scraped.  It should be fun.  One neat thing about today's appointment is that she smoothed out my front teeth.  Sounds weird, I know.  I broke my tooth when I was a kid, and instead of putting a real cap on the tooth, they just kind of built one out of white filling material.  Anyway, the current fake tooth I sport seemed to have become a bit rough over the last couple of years (she says it happens with the white fillings sometimes) so she buffed it out.  It looks better and feels really smooth when I rub my tongue over it.  BB is always running his tongue over his new front teeth, and I had to chuckle when I caught myself doing the same thing tonight.

BB now has four teeth on top and four on bottom.  I finally managed to get a finger in his mouth this morning (the first time in a couple of days that he would let me) and the remaining two that were just under the skin have now broken through.  Maybe maybe maybe we'll have a good night sleep again sometime soon?  I don't mind if he needs to get up once, I get that.  He's a baby.  It's okay that he gave us 13 hours of consecutive sleep for 17 days in a row when he was three months old, and then took it away from us.  But having to get up with him two or three times a night right now, plus waking up for the day at 05:00 or earlier is really starting to make me feel a bit zombie-like.  

I've been working hard over the past couple of weeks to teach BB how to wave.  I've failed at every attempt.  Then last night, N was walking by with her hound and DH and BB were looking at her from the living room window.  DH told BB to wave hello, and demonstrated how to do it.  Guess who started waving?!  So exciting!  Now he waves at us all the time.  I was changing his diaper this afternoon and his sweet little arm was flailing around.  :)  

It's going to be an odd weekend...  DH is going to be at a seminar all weekend, so beginning late tomorrow afternoon, BB and I will be on our own for most of the time.  DH will be home to sleep, but from the sound of things, that's basically all we'll see of him until Sunday night.  I have a couple of friends coming over Saturday night for a Stitch-n-Bitch, but aside from that there's nothing else planned.  I'll probably be begging my parents to come visit to break up one of the two days.  I don't mind one bit being here with BB all day, but I always look forward to DH returning home from work at 16:30.  I'm not sure how it will feel not having that to look forward to with nothing else to break up the day.  On the bright side though, DH is taking tomorrow off of work, so we'll be able to get a few errands taken care of and spend a bit of time together.

I'm meeting with a potential babysitter next Wednesday night.  I'm a bit nervous.  If anybody reading this has any ideas about the sorts of questions I should ask her, please let me know.  I'm worried I'm going to forget something that is really important, and then will kick myself later for not asking.  There's still no decision on BN2, but I figure I need to get my ducks in a row in case we do decide to proceed.

Quick Update

Once again, I'm sitting here wondering where the time has gone.  It feels like forever since I last posted.  I've had so many things that have made me think, "I need to write about this."  Then I proceed to mentally blog, but I haven't had the time to sit down and actually type any of it out.  

I need to get to bed soon; I feel like I'm running on empty.  But first I want to record a few things while they're on my mind.  

• Sunday was a big day in our house.  I celebrated my 10th anniversary with Kitty, and it was BB's nine month birthday!  

• BB has been working on standing up for a little while now.  He's pretty much mastered it and is now starting to stand up using a wall for support--nothing to grab on to to pull himself up!  If you blink, you can miss the process of him getting up.  He's sitting down one second, and the next he's standing there staring at you.  He's really getting good at landing on his bum when he's ready to get down.  You can't turn your back on him for even a moment--you never know what he's going to grab on to, and it's so scary to think of him flipping something over onto himself, or him falling and crashing into something that could seriously hurt him.  

• I cleaned out the bottom two shelves of the pantry yesterday, and found room for the big bags of flour that have been sitting on my kitchen floor for months, and the bags of cat food that have never had a home (besides sitting next to the cat's dishes on the kitchen floor!)  Tonight I packed away most of our pictures and decorations from the living room.  Hopefully I'll have the place baby-proofed soon.  I'm just so uncertain where to put everything.  I find I have to think hard to come up with a good place to re-home all of our stuff.  It's a slow process when you always need to find the perfect solution to a problem before you can proceed.  (Before anyone thinks I'm a bad mother, BB is never left unattended in a non-baby-proofed area!  Heck, he's rarely left unattended if he's not in his crib or play pen.  After a diaper change, he'll crawl into the bathroom while I'm in there washing up, so my back is turned on him for that 30 seconds while he's scooting to the bathroom.  hehe.  It's so cute seeing him round the corner into the bathroom with a big smile on his face, so proud of his ability to move from room to room now!)  
  

• My in-laws visited today.  It wasn't bad.  BB is very much in the clingy and shy stage, so it took a while for him to warm up to them.  I don't force him on to people if he wants to be with me.  I want him to feel reassured that everything is safe and secure in his world.  When he's ready, he makes friends.  

• I've done something I haven't done yet - I have intentionally shared my blog with a friend.  Eek.  Hi M.  :) 

• S is back in town!  Wahoo!  N and I visited her last night.  We picked up those super expensive but incredibly yummy candy apples from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate place to eat during our visit.  I also made brownies and S had some delicious cheese from the market and some crackers and some great spreads.  I didn't get home until almost 11:30... way past my bedtime!

• I got an email from the HR manager late this afternoon.  She wants the details on what I'm looking for if I don't return full-time in May.  I'm feeling a bit panicky.  I don't handle rejection well (or at all) and I'm worried she's going to tell me I'm asking for too much.  But if I don't ask there's no chance of it happening, right?

• I've decided I need to cut back on the refined sugar I'm eating.  I've been making so many squares and cookies lately.  I love baking.  But unfortunately, all of the baking needs to be eaten!  (What a chore!)  By the end of last week I was starting to feel pretty bad and came down with a bit of a cold.  I've always noticed that if I have too much sugar it seems to affect my immune system.  So I have to find something else that I enjoy baking...  I'd like to try bread sometime.  Maybe I should give that a go sometime soon.