tears before bedtime

It happened. The storm broke today after a few days of not enough sleep and a late night out last night. I exploded at Caitlyn for her terrible-2-tantrum at bedtime today. She kept crying and crying and crying and getting louder and louder. I thought she would make herself sick. I can never stand her tears. I hate to hear her cry more than Ryan. Is this because I fell in love with her when she was born and never seemed to with Ryan? Its not that I don't love Ryan, I just don't feel the same to him as I do to Caitlyn. They're different people. So I smacked her for crying. I shouted at her for crying. I exploded and crashed into the bathroom and cried in the shower forever. I am not a good mother. And there's no reason why I should be bringing another child into this family. I wanted to see my blood flowing down the drain, and as soon as I thought that thought, I said to myself, "But that would hurt!". I then went through why I might have thought this in the first place, and decided it was purely to see a physical result of my agony inside. If I make it hurt outside, will it hurt any less inside? And I know the answer to this question is most emphatically "NO!"

So I wrenched myself out of wallowing. When all I wanted was Darren to wrap me in his arms and say "What's wrong, Darling?" and I'm sure I wouldn't be able to answer. Still, he would have seen the evidence of Caitlyn's drama from many open doors, and heard me crying. When I came out he was quietly and calmly eating his lunch. Part of me was angry. Part of me understood. My throat is sore from screaming in the shower, raging at myself, at Caitlyn for crying and not sleeping, at Toby the unborn, at losing myself in motherhood. A part of me rationalised and said "Redefining yourself in motherhood", but there's always a component of loss of self to grieve over, I think.

So, a sad day. And I was sent to bed by my husband who understands full well that this sickness is in part due to lack of sleep. Feel better after a good cry, but worse at how I reacted to Caitlyn. A good dose of "Be gentle with yourself" for a week or more.

Calm before the storm?

Well, the week has been approaching hectic. I decided this week to start a post-natal and ante-natal support group in my local area. This means I'm trying to recruit helpers firstly, and researching all kinds of other things otherwise. Don't know how far I'll get given my deadline of early March, but we'll see.

Had a relatively good week, except for Friday when the kids were too hyped up on sugar from their Christmas party to want to go to bed, and there was a good percentage of crying on everyone's part about naptime. I was utterly exhausted and really needed to stop, couldn't sleep because I was crying too much. All of a sudden I heard Darren's motorbike in the garage, and I clambered out of bed and gave him the biggest hug when he walked in. I was so glad to see him! He let me sleep for a while that afternoon and took care of our littlest person, who was being most of the problem. I still can't bear it when she cries and I know she knows it. My lesson for Friday? Don't let the kids run riot at playgroup and limit the sugar intake by getting them to eat fruit or sandwiches. *sigh* But its only once a year. I'm anticipating a busy week this week and then things will get difficult in the following weeks with nowhere to go on Fridays at playgroup time. The kids will go crazy having 2-4 days home, which means inventing things for them to do, something I'm not very good at. Perhaps I'll get good at it this school holidays.

Busy but managable

This week has been hectic but managable. Much as I love Christmas, I find it really stressful from the sheer busy-ness of the whole thing. This week I'm doing a gift-registry for the new baby, which (surprisingly) is helping me bond even more with him. I want to get a baby capsule, so I've been debating the pros and cons of trying to get one secondhand, and the logistics of where each child will sit in the car to fit everyone in. We have three anchor points, but we'll need to sit everyone carefully to ensure we can use them all correctly. Anyway, thinking about these things simply makes Baby's arrival more real. Oh, and I'm counting down weeks now, not up! ;)