The kids returned on the 16th from their trip to my Aunt Daralyn's house in Eastern Washington. They had a GREAT time. Thanks for hosting them Aunt Daralyn and Uncle Greg! Thanks too to my Mom and sister who drove them there and back and gave them the experience. They still are talking about it.
On Tuesday, Jason flew out to Cincinnati for some work stuff and was gone through Sunday. For the first two nights I stayed at home with the kids, and for the last three nights stayed with my Mom. It was a rough week. Gwen got sick and missed school, Elsa wasn't sleeping during the day OR night and I was feeling generally rotten. Staying at my Mom's was nice though, even though I was dreadfully sleep deprived the entire time.
While we were there, I took Elsa to her 9 month well-child visit. She's doing great...meeting or exceeding all of her milestones! Of course, she's still tiny little thing.
She weighs 15lbs, which puts her in the 5% and is 26 inches long... which puts her in the 10%. It appears that I make tiny girl babies, but as long as they are healthy and happy, that's totally fine with me!
On Saturday, the weather was very nice and warm. We all went outside to do yard work. Well, I carried the baby around and made meals, but everyone else worked very hard. Ben was over too and the big attraction was Grandpa running the log splitter
Gwen found trash somewhere and was very upset that the nearest trashcan was very far away. I have a feeling it never made it up there.
Ethan got to run the log splitter for awhile and took great enjoyment in doing so. If you click on the picture to see it larger, you can see his little tongue sticking out in concentration. Just like Mom!
Sunday we returned home and welcomed Jason home and that was so nice. We all had missed him so much, and I think he missed us a little too.
I'm still feeling rotten though. Emotionally speaking. I seem to be in a funk of some kind and can't break out of it. Its not unusual for me to have a bad day or two, but generally I snap out of it pretty fast. This time I'm not snapping out very fast. I feel a little better today. But underneath there is a feeling of... well, um, rage. I'm not a ragey person at all, but yeah, I would have to say that I feel immensely angry a lot of the time, just under the surface. Unfortunately, that sometimes spills out onto the family and then I feel just horrible. As to why I feel so angry, well, I don't know. Some of it is, to be honest, dealing with a baby that never sleeps during the day. At least she sleeps mostly through the night now, but all day, every day, she wants to be held constantly and I've never been good at that. I've never been one who can hold a baby for hours on end and enjoy it. I have slings and other things that make it easier to hold a baby, but its still holding a baby. For me, I need my personal space to a certain degree to remain sane. Its a constant frustration of her falling asleep in my arms, going to lay her down, and 5-10 minutes later her screaming. I will do this sometimes upwards of 10 times a day, no exaggeration. Its so frustrating because she is obviously tired and needs sleep, but cannot stay asleep during the day. I spoke to the pediatrician about it and they really had no advice other than maybe letting her self-soothe, which I guess is a code word for crying it out. But she's only 9 months old. And the few times I've had to walk away to calm down, she's kept on crying... sometimes as long as 30 minutes. She has an iron will!
So all I can do is pray and try to retain perspective and do the best I can with the situation.
On a lighter note, we've been throwing around ideas for Ethan's 5th birthday next month. He really wants to go to Chuck E Cheese's (though we've never been there before). Gwen, hilariously, calls it Chuck E Jesus. Even though we correct her, she says that Chuck E Jesus IS the correct pronunciation. Funny girl. We had told Ethan that he could invite his entire pre-school class if he wanted, but he told us he only wants to invite one person from his class of 12. I'm really surprised. He says that the other people are his friends, but he doesn't want them at his party. We aren't sure what to make of that, but I feel like I shouldn't make him invite his classmates if he doesn't want to.
1 comment:
Cute! Nothing better then having a log splitting day with the family. Here in Oregon we love heading up to the hills for the weekend and splitting wood and enjoying the outdoors. Thanks for the story!
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