balance

Having Baby Two: My Revelation

sasloveswords3 Comments

2016-03-03 16.02.11Hello lovely people, thanks once again for coming back this week. Another blog post, I’m impressed with myself. Funny though, talking about parenthood is easy as breathing for me right now. I am in the thick of it; treading water hard to keep my head afloat. I have yet another confession, well let me call it more of a revelation actually. This is something I discovered about myself as my little one was turning three months old. Now, only now, I can I officially say I know what busy is. With one child, I felt like I never had time to do things and even felt like I never had time to myself. I remember when my first was three months old, I had come to my breaking point. I cried to my husband that I felt like I was drowning, never having a spare moment to just be by myself. I was breastfeeding my son exclusively and was desperately starting to feel suffocated by it, so we agreed that every night at bedtime he would give our son a bottle and put him to bed while I had an hour to myself. Just to myself. That moment changed everything for me. It was amazing. The boys had time to bond together and I got my sanity back. Now, I look back and laugh at myself. No freedom… honey you had lots of freedom! Today I struggle for ten minutes to shower (though let me tell you when I get those ten minutes it… is… pure… heaven).

Nowadays I let my newborn son breastfeed for an hour on and off at night to keep him quiet while my husband puts our older son to bed. Yeah that’s right I have my son sleeping on me with my boob out and should he wake up again he quietly goes back to nursing and I get a chance to sit and watch MOMMY’S TV shows instead of bloody Paw Patrol for the millionth time. Now I’m sure there are plenty of people out there judging me or wanting to lecture me on how bad it is that I let my son nurse on demand like that at night, but honestly I don’t care what anyone thinks or says. That is my sanity time, though I might not be alone; it is quiet. My husband and older son are happily reading stories upstairs; the toys are still spilled all over the floor to which I choose to ignore and I sit down on the goldfish crumb filled couch to watch my recorded episode of “The Bachelor” or “Long Island Medium” or whatever I choose because it is my time. Sure it would be nice to sit down without having my boob out, but for now I like to say having children is only about survival. Yours. Theirs. So I do what I need to do at the time to ensure everyone’s survival. If that means I rent out my boobs at night time, they are all his!

There you have it… my revelation. Having your first baby turns your life upside down, inside out over again and it’s rough to adjust at first, but having your second is so much easier given that you are now a practiced parent; however, there is no time. No time. No time. No time. I have never been so overwhelmed, so tired and so happy. I, we, are surviving the best we can and that is enough for now. 

So I am throwing my hand up in the air and high-fiving any of you parents out there with one, two, three… ten kids. You are doing a great job! You are doing the best you can! None of us hear that enough. Awesome job day after day doing what you need to do to give your kids the best of yourself. Keep it up!!!!

Until next time,

❤ Melissa

Emotional Recklessness

sasloveswords6 Comments

QuoteHappy Friday! It’s a bittersweet Friday for me. I’m happy because it is the weekend, but I’m anxious because it’s Friday already. I feel like it was an hour ago that I was scrambling last week to get a post up and here I am again this week in full panic mode. This is no way to write, under all that pressure. It took me all of today obsessing about it and repeating in my mind… you have nothing to say… you have nothing to say… you’re going to skip this week… I know it… you’re going to fail yourself and post a big fat nothing.

I am emotionally reckless. I am tearing my writer self apart for not prioritizing my writing more. Even during the crazy rush of Christmas, I didn’t feel this far behind. The days are literally slipping through my fingers. My son Dylan was sick at the end of last week and the beginning of this week, so he was needy. He only wanted Mommy snuggles at bedtime which is usually when Dad takes over and I can get a few moments to myself. I have been working hard on trying to get a family trip to Kelowna organized and booked. That is not an easy task with nine of us involved. My house is a train wreck, almost to the point where I was considering moving to save myself the hours and hours of cleaning it. That took up a huge chunk of my day yesterday and will again today. I looked into it… it was too expensive to move, so I had to clean. I have to do a bunch of planning still for Dylan’s party including some baking this weekend. The only break I got so far this week was a couple of hours to write my book. Although I was trying to come up with every distraction I could before I convinced myself to sit down and write. But I did. Slowly and steadily the word count is growing. 36,272 words written!

Even my office job is so busy at the moment that it can get overwhelming at times. The only time at work when I feel like I can get a moment to breathe is when I spend my hour lunch break in the gym. Thank God for that quiet alone time to myself. Our gym is the size of a closet but it is functional and ninety-nine percent of the time I am alone.

All of this is making me feel edgy and anxious. Especially writing my weekly blog. It is probably just a phase I am going through, but I feel like I have lost direction and focus here. I am not sure what my message is. I want to share my poems and book reviews. The blogs in between are just my random thoughts relating to life and writing. Is that enough to sustain me? Am I talking about things people want to read about? Am I saying something people can relate to? Oh those self-doubt demons are lurking around me. They are wanting me to make excuses and give up. It is easier to run and hide then stay and fight. I am emotional reckless:, tired, scared, anxious, happy, frustrated, overwhelmed, hopeful.

I am going to end this week on hopeful. I am hopeful above all the rest. Hopeful in my heart I know the direction I am taking my writing. Hopeful I am capable of maintaining balance. Hopeful I can continue to forgive myself when I don’t. Hopeful I remember I am human and am I doing the best I can at each moment of my life.

80s-life-quotes

❤ Melissa