I woke up this morning feeling really, really, really tired. I skipped choir rehearsal so I could go to bed early, and I was in bed at 8:30, but while I was getting ready for bed, Beth came over and told Paul that she's too busy to babysit for us any more. This was a total shock. I had seen Beth at 3pm before I left for work, and she made no mention of anything, and she also didn't say anything to Paul when he came home at 5pm. Needless to say this was upsetting since it was so sudden. Thankfully I called Sarah agreed this morning to start babysitting for us starting today. It was hard for me to go right to sleep after Paul told me this news. Then Ian woke up at 1:30pm and didn't go back to sleep until 2:15am. As usual, it took me awhile to fall back asleep. Then he woke up again at 4:55am. I had planned to ask Paul to watch the kids for me for a couple of hours on Saturday so I could get caught up on grading, but right now my top priority is sleep. I've been grateful for the neighbor's help the past several months. I knew I was going to miss them when they moved, but their days of babysitting for us have come to an end even sooner than that. I feel badly for Alexis and Gabby (her daughters) also as they really enjoyed watching the kids, and I'm sure they appreciated the money also as middle schoolers don't have too many opportunities for earning money. I need to find a high schooler (maybe from church?) who can babysit for us one Saturday a month for a few hours so Paul and I can still go on dates now and then. I'm hoping against hope that if I go to bed by 8:30pm tonight that I will get at least 8 hours of sleep. This morning I also injured my lower back while giving the kids a bath. I am in a lot of pain. It's really painful to carry Ian right now. I'm hoping the pain goes away asap! Between the exhaustion and the pain, I feel like I am about to have a meltdown.
Even though I worked super hard to keep Ian awake from 4:55-8:30 am, he only slept for 30 minutes. I was so frustrated. He really, really wanted to go back to sleep at 11am, but I kept him up until 12pm. I almost let him sleep at 11am since keeping him up didn't seem to be working, but I am ever so glad I did keep him up. Yesterday I tried to take a nap while they were both down, but since his second nap was only 25 minutes long yesterday, that didn't enable me to take a nap. Today I figured the same would happen so I didn't lie down after putting him down. Well I should have! When I realized he was still asleep after 35 minutes, I went upstairs and laid down. I had said this morning to Paul that I really, really wanted him to take a long second nap in light of my exhaustion and back pain. I told Paul it would be a miracle. Well I should have had more faith. Miracles do still happen. I really wasn't expecting the miracle that I was wishing for. Ian actually slept for 80 minutes! WOOHOO! I am glad I at least rested in bed for half of his nap. I am definitely motivated to keep working on getting him adjusted to two naps a day. If he would sleep in later I would like his naps to be at 9am and 1pm, but as long as he keeps getting up around 5am (or earlier), I'll aim for 8am and 12pm. Paul put him to bed at 6:40 last night. I asked Paul to please not put him down any earlier than 7pm tonight. I also hope Ian goes back to sleeping through the night. Mommy is tired.
One thing that made me feel better about this sudden transition from Beth to Sarah is that Nadia vastly prefers to go to Abby's house. She was excited today (rather than in tears). That definitely made it easier for me to leave for work. Another thing I was thankful for today was that we are using a cleaning service. I am very glad we signed up for every other week. Last Thursday I looked around and was glad we weren't having the house cleaned every week. It's not necessary. I figured it wouldn't take the ladies as long today as it did 2 weeks ago, and I was right. The two of them were done in 80 minutes (compared to about 125 minutes 2 weeksago). I hope this means that if I invest about one hour a week cleaning the house, it can look as it nice as it does with two people cleaning it for an hour every other week (when I become a SAHM). Of course I've still been sweeping the kitchen floor every day and such like that. It's not like I've completely abandoned all house cleaning duties, but it's nice to not need to scrub the toilets and such. I officially put in my request for a 50% unpaid leave for the spring semester. I also let my department chair know that I am considering resigning after the summer. Even though I know my stress level would go down a lot, I admit it's hard to think of letting go of the tenure and promotion that I worked so hard to earn.
No comments:
Post a Comment