Sleep

(You knew this post was coming, right?)

I think one of the update emails that I sent when I was pregnant with Rhys said something like “I know I’m going to be tired.  I get it.”

What a f*ing idiotic statement.  No one can “get” how tired they’re going to be when they have kids.  To all of the parents who read my statement and bit their tongue, I commend you.   

What’s weird is that I don’t actually feel that tired.  My body, having gotten the message that sleep of any quantity or quality will not be happening, is pumping out mass quantities of adrenaline and cortisol to stay in a somewhat functioning mode.

What I do feel is incredibly irritable.  I have no patience, which is a bad thing to find yourself in short supply of when trying to be a loving mother to your three year-old.  It is nearly impossible to be the woman and mother I want to be when my sleep tank is constantly on empty.

I was dealing ok with the sleep deprivation prior to returning to work.  If the opportunity presented itself, I could linger in bed in the morning.  Most days, I was able to catch at least a short cat nap that revived me.  Now that I’m back at work, neither of those are an option and the lack of sleep is taking its toll. 

As a result of my grid-iron determination to breastfeed Lorelei and my concerns about her weight gain, I have always been the one to get up with her.  I hit my breaking point last week and asked Brian for help (note that he’s always been willing to help, it’s been me who has insisted on doing it herself).  Unfortunately, Lorelei was not on board with this idea.  The couple of times we’ve tried it, she has cried and cried.  As Brian said, it seems that our daughter is much like her Mama in the middle of the night…pissed off about being awake and wanting what she wants to help her get back to sleep. 

Perhaps sensing that Dada was available for duty, Rhys has now started to call out for Brian up to 3 times per night.  And by “call out” I mean scream at the top of his freakin’ lungs.  It sucks.  That is an understatement.  (In our new house we are much further away from Rhys, but his voice echoes throughout all 3K+ square feet, so we hear him loud and clear). 

Before I had kids, when I heard people say that being a parent was hard, I’d think to myself, “that’s ok, I can do it.  I’ve done lots of hard stuff in my life.”  What I never really understood was that being a parent is hard because it is constant.  24/7, day-after-day, week-after-week you are a parent.  It’s not hard because it’s ditch-digging, it’s hard because it’s relentless!  The “hard” stuff that I’d done before always had a known endpoint followed by a rest period.  That is not the case now.  There are no weekends in the job of parenting.  There's no guarantee of a good night's sleep following a day's work.   

Sorry for the Debbie-downer post.  I just needed to vent.  Deep down inside, I know how lucky I am to have two beautiful kids.  It’s just really difficult to live in that space of gratitude right now.  Not being able to find the joy in life, but instead feeling like I’m in survival mode, is the worst thing about not getting enough sleep.

They are cute, no doubt about it.
And I'd be able to enjoy them so much more if I could get a 5-hour stretch of sleep.

Isn't the look on her face priceless?!
"Good luck with that 5 hours, Mama.  Bwahahahahahaha!"

New Digs

So, we moved.  With the generous help of family and friends, and a ton of work by Brian, we managed to pack up the contents of our townhome and move our little family of four to our spacious new house.  

Executing a move in the midst of an already busy, sleep-deprived life is not something I would recommend, but I sure am glad we did it.  I was beyond ready to get out of our townhouse.  I know it’s a first-world problem, but being crammed in 950 square feet day after day with an extremely energetic toddler was more than my introverted, need-some-space-for-me, self could handle. 

The journey to find our new house was long and, at many times, frustrating.  We wasted too much time with a sub-par real estate agent that we should have fired long before we did.  We considered building a modular home from scratch.  We considered moving out to Snoqualmie.  We considered buying a fixer-upper and doing a 9+ month remodel.  Towards the end I was so worn out that I was about ready to settle for any 3 bedroom house.  I had resigned myself to the idea that we would find a house that would be fine, but it certainly wouldn't be something I loved.

I am so glad I was wrong.  I truly love our new house.  There’s more space than we know what to do with and it thrills me!  This is a house we can grow into.  I can see the kids having sleepovers with their friends.  I can see the basement being a good place for teenagers to hang out.  I can see taking a shower at night without worrying about waking up the kids (oh, wait, that’s already happening!). 

The neighborhood is fantastic too.  It’s quiet.  There’s seems to be lots of families with kids.  We’ve met a few folks and they are kind and welcoming.  

We've only been here a little over a week and, of course, are still getting settled in but it’s very much feeling like home.  

You can't tell from this picture because he's on his union-mandated snack break, but Rhys was a great helper during the move.  The kid is a very hard worker.

Uncle Coco used his geometry skills to figure out how to fit everything in the U-Haul.

Lorelei found the move to be exhausting.  This is her third nap of the day.

This is a 10-minute walk from our new house.  Pretty awesome.

Me and the kiddos out for a walk in our new neighborhood.