Sunday, March 24, 2013

Confessions of a bad mother

One thing I've learned since becoming a mother is that mothers are their children's biggest defenders. I mean why shouldnt we be? They are a reflection of us and of our parenting. But sometimes its not all cute ruffles and instagram pictures. Sometimes I look at people who flaunt their perfect life and perfect kids on instagram and facebook and wish I could be a fly on the wall in their house to see how shiz really goes down.

Case in point, yesterday we came home early from my friend's cabin because we were up all night with Jayda who was puking (whats new, right?). In the morning all of us felt a little pukey so we think it was altitude sickness because (of course) by the time we got naps, ate lunch and packed up we all felt better. We all decided we just wanted to sleep in our own bed though.

By the time we got home we were just exhausted. We had planned on playing games, drinking hot cocoa, and the girls going tubing in the snow while the boys went off to play golf. This is just one example of how in your head you have so many expectations that just don't work out the way you think it's going to work out. Happens all the time when kids are invovled.

Finally when we got home Jayda was on one. She's going through a phase where she asks the same question over and over again and if we don't tell her the answer she wants to hear she just keeps asking. Now I know where my mom was coming from when she would say, "If you ask me one more time I'm going to say no and send you to your room!"

Both Chase and I slept like crap the night before (if it's not one kid, it's the other) so we were not in the best of spirits to say the least. So Jayda decided she needed to go poop. Terrific...everyone poops. Not a big deal. So after she did the deed she comes out and tells Chase she needs him to wipe her butt. He comes over and as he does she sticks her finger up her butthole. Immediately he yells at her to get her freaking finger out of her butthole and that she needs to wash her hands. She then looks him dead in the eyes as she takes the finger right next to it and sticks it in her mouth. At this point she's got poop all the way up her front and back, not to mention her hand.

Right then I knew we were done. I said, "Chase, you better call your mother right now and get her out of here before I really lose it. I need a Jaydavacation. Immediately." I was so done with her bodily fluids. Mucka's turn!

Sometimes it's best to just take a break for not only you but for the kids. And sometimes it means taking a day in your pjs, eating chocolate and watching TV (Les miserables on DVD anyone?).

Shortly after having Jayda I heard my mother in law say that "It takes a village to raise a child." Which I took to mean she was going to be a big source in raising my child. The mama bear in me was like, "Umm heeelll naw, I will be raising my child myself, thank you very much." Now I completely agree with her. It does take so much more than you and thats a slice of humble pie I've had to consume.

I can't even begin to pick out all the things that I've had to rewrite out of my plans of raising a child because a lot of it is the opposite.

Which leads me to my second confession. As far as breastfeeding goes, for the most part I hated it! My last post I wrote about how well she was doing and it was going well. And for a few weeks it was. But even then I felt like I was jailed up and couldn't leave the house or even put a shirt on. Looking back I do think I was not at all confident and worried way too much about my supply. Live and learn.

Anywho, one day I finally came out of my bedroom after what seemed like half the day spent feeding Haven and found Jayda butt naked curled up on the couch watching TV. I felt so guilty. Here I was feeding Haven like a king and laying food out for Jayda like she was a dog.

As far as eating goes Jayda is way behind. I literally have to police her into eating her food. Sometimes I even have to feed her myself otherwise she will literally go all day and not tell me she is hungry. And even then sometimes she will literally put her hands over her mouth and say, "un-uh." She's 23lbs for a reason. Most bizarre thing ever.

Then we moved and I think Haven had a hard time adjusting to the new surroundings. She was refusing to nurse and I was so sick of having to feed her kicking and screaming and then having to pump on top of it to keep my supply up since she was refusing. Ain't nobody got time for that.

What really sealed the deal for me was that she wasn't wetting her diapers very well and in a month only gained 8oz. So after about a week of thinking it through I decided to just nurse her if she wanted to. If not then I would just pump and give a bottle. For awhile we were giving her bottles in the day and then breastfeeding her at night. Then she got her immunizations and she turned into a complete psychopath. She screamed day and night for a week. She went from sleeping a solid 8-9 hours a night to not sleeping more than an hour at a time and would not nurse anymore at night. In fact she went through 5 bottles a night!

So that was the end of breastfeeding for us. I still am pumping tons of milk out and have about 3 months freezer stash (and building) so I don't feel that bad. In fact all the stress is gone and I refused to have eating issues with another one of my kids because I was too proud to give her a bottle. I learned through that experience that breastfeeding is not frolicking around in a field of marigolds in the sunset. For some people that may be the case but it wasn't over here. AND we went back a week after the crappy weigh in and switching to bottles and she had gained almost a pound in a WEEK! So that only confirmed to me that I did the right thing and she just wasnt getting enough from me.

So here I continue the crazy adventure of motherhood. With the crazy twists and turns and trying to take life as it's handed to me instead of trying to hand life what it's going to hand to me.

After puking all night long you'd think she'd be tired. Instead she only slept a couple hours and then came and woke me up after an hour of sleeping and said, "Its a beautiful day. Let's go sledding!" What the eff. Finally, I rolled out of bed, did some stuff and then got her all ready for the snow. She spent 5 minutes outside before begging to come back in. Expectations I tell ya. Best not to have them at all!

And in other news....I cut my hair! A LOT! And I got to donate my 10inches to Locks of Love!