Too Proud...

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Having baby number three was such a blessing to me. My husband and I suffered a miscarriage while trying to have a third child and when I got pregnant and carried Jilly Billy to full term we were so happy.

When I had my first child the transition was hard- my husband and i had no idea what to expect and it took a bit to get the hang of things. Obviously we eventually did get the hang of things because we decided to have a second child.

Going from one kid to two kids was such a breeze for me. Things just somehow fell all into place and life was good. Once Alli was a year old we decided to have a third child and got pregnant when she was 15 months old. I wanted all of the kids to be two years apart and things were going exactly to plan.

But something didn't feel right- something inside of me felt like something was wrong. Well, something was wrong and I ended up losing the baby. It was such a soul shattering thing to go through, even worse than when I had a miscarriage when my husband and I were first married. I pretty much bottled up my feelings inside and soldiered on with raising my two kids. I felt like I should be thankful for already having two healthy kids and felt selfish for wanting a third. For a brief amount of time I swore off having anymore kids- I just could not deal with the heartache if something happened again.

After a few months of silently mourning I decided that I did want another baby. We ended up pregnant a couple of months later and after a few months of constant worry that something bad was going to happen I made it into the second trimester with a healthy pregnancy and then went on to deliver a full term healthy baby girl. What joy my husband and I felt to have added a beautiful baby girl to our family.

Once I was home from the hospital and my husband went back to work real life set in. The easy breezy days that I imagined did not happen. I felt like an emotional wreck plus my recovery from the c-section was not going well. I felt like I wasn't being a good mom to my older kids, that my house was in shambles because I wasn't keeping up on the cleaning and that I was being a terrible wife to my husband.

I am stubborn and proud and you know what I did about these issues? Nothing. I just went on with life pretended that these issues didn't exist. I was a shell of the person I once was but I was too proud to admit defeat and ask for help.

Was it post partum depression? Now that I look back I think it could have been. I was so overwhelmed by bringing home a newborn to a home with a four year old and two year old already in it that I felt like a crappy mom. I also had all of these pent up feelings about my pregnancy losses that I have never dealt with in a productive manner- it all just added up to me feeling awful and useless. You feel down about your life and then you think about how good you have things which makes you feel more down because how dare you pity yourself when there are others who have it worse than you.

How did I end up dealing with these emotions? Well, it took my husband having a very honest conversation with me to snap me back into reality. The way I had been dealing with my feelings was affecting my family and it was pushing away the one person who had always been there for me- my husband who was the person who I chose to spend the rest of my life with.

Now every day I try to think about what makes me happy- I think about how much i love my husband and how I have been in love with him since we were in high school. I think about how my husband is such a wonderful man who loves me, faults and all, and is such a loving and caring father to our children. My kids can be monsters but they are also loving children who bring joy to my life.

Am I a perfect mom now? Um. no. Like everyone else I take life day by day. I no longer feel like a complete failure, which is how I felt after I had the baby, but I still get a little down on myself at times. Being a mom is such a hard and complex job and I am doing the best that I can do and trying to give myself credit for doing my best at it.

Mommy Is Going To Lose It...

Yesterday morning was one of those mornings that was so annoying that I look back on it and shake my head.

My son had school so we had to be out of the house by 8:20 am which is not super early in the real world but when you have three kids it is torture.

I gave the older kids their breakfast which on this particular day consisted of wheat toast, milk and yogurt (yep, no fruit- the terrible mother that I am was running late and had no time to cut up fruit). Then I went upstairs to gather their clothing for the day and then I ironed their clothing for the day- I may be a sack of crap mom sometimes but I draw the line at my kids leaving the house looking like they are homeless. I went back into the kitchen and my son had not touched any of his food which really annoyed me. Every school morning he sits at the table and does not eat his food until I yell at him. When he saw my face this morning he grabbed his Go-Gurt and ate it but I grabbed his plate and threw his toast in the trash which of course he didn't even care about. I told him that maybe next time he would eat what I made him- most likely not but man, am I sick of having to make him eat his breakfast.

I went back upstairs to grab my clothing and flushed the toilet in the upstairs bathroom to rid it of any late night pee. Apparently my son had gone number two before he came downstairs for breakfast (or should I say sit at the table and not eat anything time) and had used baby wipes to wipe his bum. He must have used a ton because the toilet overflowed all over the floor. After I yelled down the stairs to "politely" explain to him that he must never put baby wipes in the toilet I grabbed a bunch of towels and sopped up the blue toilet water. Then I made a mental note to steam mop the floor when I got a chance later in the day while also feeling a piece of me die on the inside because I now had even more laundry to do.

As I got downstairs my daughter just happened to drop her yogurt cup on the floor which proceeded to splatter everywhere. Who knew that yogurt was so aerodynamic? I just stared at it for a minute in disbelief and then did a piss poor job cleaning that up as we were really running behind. I made yet another mental note to hit up the mess later in the day when I had time all the while I kept saying "Alli, are you kidding me- don't fool around at the kitchen table".

At this point the baby was screaming because she was hungry (I had fed her an hour before so she wasn't starving) so I popped in the pacifier to keep her from hyperventilating. I got the kids dressed which in itself was a test to my patience- for some reason when it is time to dress the kids they become squirming, complaining monsters. I threw the baby in her car seat and we were out the door, a little late but alas we were on our way. The baby did get fed in the school parking lot after I dragged everyone into school to drop my son off. That is the good thing about breastfeeding- my boobs are always ready to feed; no need to take time to prep a bottle.

I really hate school mornings because it seems like everyday is just a frantic race out the door. Stuff always comes up that throws me off and the kids always decide to not cooperate, especially my daughter who cries about everything imaginable when we are trying to get ready for school (she no longer wears socks because of this and I have recently given up on getting her to wear a coat). And then there is the baby who cries when I put her in her car seat- she hates being cooped up in it and is not shy about letting me know it. No matter how early I get up we are always rushing around. I really wish sometimes that I could be the type of mom who just wears her pajamas to school drop off but that would crush my soul- putting on real clothing is my last grasp at being a human being and not just a mom.

Honestly, if my husband and I weren't paying so much to send my son to pre-school there would be a lot of mornings where I would say screw it, we're staying home and you monster children are going to sit in your rooms all day so mommy won't lose it and need to check herself into a psychiatric hospital. I can only console myself with that fact that I should enjoy this year because next year will really suck- my son is going to Kindergarten five half days a week (I won't find out if he is in the morning or afternoon program until the middle of the summer) and my daughter is starting nursery school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We live too close to the elementary school so no buses for us, just me either walking to school or on days where the weather is awful I will be driving and contending with all of the other frantic moms in their various minivans and SUV's.

To everyone out there who says "someday when the kids are grown up you will miss all of this", can you please cart my children around for me?

Patience- What's That?

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Patience is something that I have been completely lacking lately, especially in these last few weeks of my pregnancy.

Between not being able to sleep well at night and just a general lack of energy it seems as if things that would not have bothered me before really get on my nerves now. My kids are a large part of my lack of patience as they are at the ages now where they fight constantly about everything and most of the time about nothing at all. A lot of the time I find myself just letting them beat the crap out of each other because I just don't want to deal with their squabbles and I feel like they need to work things out by themselves. How many times can I intervene when they fight over a toy- it does no good and then they just start fighting over another toy five minutes later. But then there are the times where my head is already throbbing and I am tired beyond belief that the wrath of mommy comes out- I yell a lot and then banish everyone to their rooms.

I know that my patience and energy level will return once I have the baby so we all just need to make through he next week and a half of me being crazy.

Mother's Day Melt Down

Yesterday was Mother's Day and I had a mini-meltdown in the morning.

I really don't know what it was- maybe pent up feelings mixed with raging pregnancy hormones- but I just started crying and couldn't stop. My poor husband kept asking what was wrong and I really couldn't give him a definitive answer. I did finally stop and after getting to take a nap later in the day I felt a million times better but now I am sitting here trying to figure our why I freaked out.

First of all, I know being pregnant and emotional played a part in it but I think that stress was a major factor. I know, I know- what the heck does a stay at home mom have to stress about, right? Well, moms stress about everything whether they stay home or get to escape to work.

Lately I have been feeling like a horrible and crappy mom. My house has not been getting cleaned with the same vigor as it used to, the clean laundry has been sitting unfolded in the laundry baskets longer than I would care to admit, my kids has been fighting to the point where I don't enjoy being with them when they are together and the fact that I joined Facebook and read the status updates of the braggart moms who love their precious darlings and who just love being moms of the year (which I know is total B.S. but it still stings when I feel the complete opposite).

All of the things I listed are completely stupid reasons to feel inferior but when I pile them all up on myself and add in pregnancy hormones I just feel like a big ball of horse crap.

So, what do I do from here? I really have no idea. I guess just keep plugging away and trying to cut myself some slack. I have an almost four year old, an almost two year old and am twelve weeks pregnant- what the heck is it that I expect from myself?