Today Was a Rough Day

Any day that starts at 2:00am can't be headed for greatness...and that may be the BIGGEST understatement of the year right there.

Sunday Randy, Keagan and I met some of the family at Old Forge - Enchanted Forest to spend the afternoon having fun in the sun and the evening in a quaint one bedroom cabin (thankfully, each of us had our own cabin because that?  Wouldn't have been pretty.)

Has anyone seen any glaring foreshadowing yet?  No?  Read on.

Our little family had so much fun.  Taking Keagan on his first water ride, watching him play in the wave pool running back and forth in the surf with a huge smile on his face and playing with his cousin was fantastic.  Sure, he hadn't taken a nap.  Sure, he'd been up since 6:30am.  Sure, I was in dire need of coffee.  But all in all, we were having a blast.

Later that evening we sat around the fire eating hot dogs, watching the boys play and pick raspberries.  We were amazed that he was still going and even more amazed that he was in such great spirits.  Randy finally tucked him into bed around 10pm (VERY late for him) and we crawled into bed ourselves shortly after, completely blissful and exhausted.

And then the screaming started.

Did I mention we were in a one-bedroom cabin?

Did I mention Keagan is STILL going through a mommy phase?

Need I go much further?

By 5am (yes, three hours later) I was exhausted and on the verge of tears.  I was vowing to walk out of that cabin with little tufts of my newly highlighted hair gripped in my two hands.  I was ready to call it quits.

He finally curled up in bed with me (after he banished Randy to the much smaller twin bunk bed across the room because GOD FORBID HE BE SHARING A BLANKET WITH DADDY!) and slept.

It was short-lived, but he slept.  We all slept.  But it didn't make it any easier, it didn't make it any better.  Now we had an over-tired toddler at a water park...and it's raining.  The car ride back was brutal as he screamed that he wanted Cheeze-Its (which were residing in his lap), he hit the dog and threw a full sippy cup at my head.

I know these days are few and far between.  I know that he is only two and yes, he was so tired.  But these days right here?  These are the days that make me feel about as defeated as any human being can ever possibly feel.

3:15am

3:15am.

That's what time my child woke up this morning.

3:15...A.M.

I should preface this by saying, I know I'm lucky.  Keagan has consistently slept through the night since around 8 months old.  He has consistently gone to bed between 7:30pm and 8pm and most days we have to wake him up to get ready for daycare.

I get it.  I'm lucky.  I'm lucky because a lot of parents don't get that.

Unfortunately, the fact that he DOES usually sleep through the night made 3:15am REALLLLLLY difficult to see.  It made it even more difficult when the reason he was losing his mind was that he wanted his sippy cup.  That was sitting right next to him.  But he couldn't see.  And he didn't remember it was there because he also didn't take a nap yesterday and fell asleep on Randy's chest while reading Otto Goes To Bed for the 80th time since Thursday.

So I'm tired.  And I'm cranky.  And I'm in dire need of an extra-large caffeinated drink like nobodies business.

But you know what?  I know when I go in to wake him up for daycare this morning he'll smile that ridiculously cute smile at me, giggle a giggle so similar to mine and climb up into my arms like a little koala bear...and all will be right with the world. 

Hopefully I can juggle my coffee with the 35 pound koala bear on my hip.

Breakthrough

I kind of fell off the face of the planet.

Not really...but really.

For awhile there I was doing so well.  Writing at least a post a day, making my readers laugh, posting pictures of the midget.

Then it seems like it all came crashing down.  There isn’t any one particular straw that broke this camel’s back.  It was a dang haystack.  And I was the needle.  Good luck finding that.

The other day I came on to search a recipe that I knew I had posted a couple of years back and I saw that my last post was from almost three months ago, and who the heck is that little boy, surely he isn’t my little man that is toddling all over the place yelling “To Infinity…and Beyond” (or at least a garbled version of that) and swinging in the big boy swing.  Surely it hadn’t been THAT long since I’d taken some time to write something, anything.

But it has.  I’m ashamed.  And you know what?  There has been a notable difference in me, in my “real” life since I stopped writing.  And not in a good way.

There are many things that I have shared on this blog over the years.  For Christ’s sake, I postedsticks THAT I HAD PEED ON for the entire world to see.  But I always stopped short of sharing what I have, for a very long time now; felt was too much to share, especially knowing that I have family that follows.  I didn’t want to be bombarded by questions, thought differently of, or be worried about.  I didn't want to be judged.

That choice to not share is what lead to me not posting, lead to me getting touchier and touchier with my husband, lead me to wanting to scream every time my son had a temper tantrum.  Without an outlet to share I bottled up all these feelings and have since taken them out on the two closest targets, my two loves of my life.

How is that good?  It’s not.

My dear friend Miranda at Not Super…Just Mom is actually why I’m writing today.  Miranda has, from the very beginning been very open and honest about her struggle and survival of PPD.  The other day she wrote a post about slipping.  After a hellacious day she was done.  She needed a break.  She needed a hug.  She needed reassurance that she was not only a good mom, but a great one.

And she got it.

She got it from her friends.

She got it from her readers.

She got it from her family.

She got it because she put it out there.  She wrote about how hard of a time she was having and how she felt and what she needed.

Reading that made me realize that my bottling up and not talking about my own experience wasn’t helping me; if anything it was hindering me and making things worse.  It made me realize that I can’t get support from anyone if no one even knows I’m struggling.

Because I am.  And I have been for almost two years now.  I remember the day I said to my husband “I think I need to talk to my doctor about going on meds,” and he looked at me and said “I agree.”  Wake up call much?  For months I had been struggling with it all, trying to figure out how to be super-mom, super-wife, super-everything and for months I kept disappointing myself and feeling that I wasn’t good enough and never would be.  And for months I took it out on Randy.

Finally I called my doctor.  I sat in her office and cried.  I cried for the months of feeling like a failure.  I cried for the months of being so angry at my husband and having no idea why.  I cried for the months of just wanting to run away, turn back time, just let go.

I cried because I was depressed.  I know that now.  It wasn’t that I was a bad wife.  It wasn’t that I was a horrible mother.  I cried because, like so many other women out there I had a condition known as Postpartum Depression.

I left her office that day feeling like a weight, albeit a small one, had been lifted off my shoulders.  Along with a prescription I had strict orders to exercise, take “me time” and to talk.  I followed these orders for quite some time.

And then I stopped working out.

And then I stopped writing.

And then I started snapping at my husband for every little thing and thinking I must be just a horrible mother because who else but a horrible mother would let their child have a nervous breakdown at the thought of a juice box that didn’t have Lightning McQueen on it?

It hit me last week that I hadn’t worked out in months.  I hadn’t really taken “me time” in awhile either, and I hadn’t written anything or talked to anybody in a real long time. 

It hit me that I needed to stop this before it lead me down that dark path any farther.

So this week I went to Zumba for the first time.  I’ve never had so much fun burning a ridiculous number of calories before.  This week I went to Target, by myself, just to walk around.  This week I wrote.

This week, I’ll start to feel better.