Sneaky husband and motherhood

How come every time the cleaning people must come is my husband gone? He's either getting his hair cut or some other thing. The thing is they come once a month and he's ALWAYS gone that one day. I'm thinking he's doing it on purpose. And why is that I do more work around the house when the cleaning people come? I have to preclean before they clean. It just isn't right. I should have a break that two hours once a month shouldn't I? Argh.

Maybe I'm just grumpy because I stayed up late making LD a cool cool cool scarf and well he decided to grace me with his presense at 5am instead of his normal 7, DH is out of town arriving today and so is my sil and her family, bil and his tomorrow. That means, my behind is going to be dragging all day which sucks because I'm excited to see them.

The issues of my day: (1) i have a nasty cold and can't take medicine for it since i'm still nursing LD (2) I got three lousy hours of sleep (3) I cleaned the entire house at 8am (4) LD wore me out this morning fighting over his breakfast, his desire to empty every drawer in the house because he was mad at me for making him eat worms (jk).

I need a day off. When is mother's day? All I really want to do is be a woman again...if only for one day. One day without anyone asking anything of me, one day without this little person grabbing at my shirt, pulling on my leg, yelling his demands. A haircut would be nice too. I haven't had a haircut since God knows when. I swear, sometimes I think I should get back into the workforce so I can have a break. Work never looked so appealing. Heck, I'd probably enjoy an hour or two commute. Coffee breaks would take on a whole nother meaning for me and daily exercise that didn't consist of chasing another person, bending over picking up toys and blocks that'll break your foot if you don't watch it. Ah, it sounds so lovely. It's too bad I don't trust anyone with my little guy and it's too bad I'd miss him so intensely and worry about him all day if I were at work. He's still so breakable in my eyes.

I'm reading this book called "From High Heels to Bunny Slippers" by Christine Conners and this line struck a chord with me: "I often found myself envious of my husband's success at work and the simple freedoms he had, such as going to lunch with coworkers or travelling out of town. Although I truly believed that I had made the very best decision for our child, a part of me ached for the days when I was assured of my competence, knew who I was, and felt like a contributing member of society. My self-esteem disappeared with my previous identity, and depression filled the void."

I can so relate to this statement. As my freedom gets sucked up even more by toddlerhood I begin to feel lost. I don't usually post personal personal stuff because well, anyone can read this here blog including my long list of inlaws etc. but I think a lot of women go through this and don't talk about it and we should because, well we are human, even though on many days we may not feel like it. I was at the used bookstore the other day with Little Dude and well he began one of his moods...the ones where nothing makes him happy, the one where he wants to tear everything off shelves, break things, hurt himself by hitting his head against a wall, pulling his hair, mine and biting me. The one where if I pick him up or tell him to stop he screams a high pitched cry and all eyes focus on me - the one who can't control her child (does anyone actually know how to "control" their child? please tell me how). I just wanted to trade in three bags of books, browse the shelves for fifteen minutes and maybe find a book or two.

What I got was stress, credit that i'll never have the time to use and the realization that my life doesn't look anything like it did two years ago, before marriage, before Atlanta, before kids. I don't regret any of these decisions (well maybe Atlanta...i should have made my husband move to Colorado although I do like the people I've met here and really look forward to meeting people like Koonj :-) but I also miss part of that life. The one where I was able to browse bookshelves in stores, and where I had a little control over my day and could devote an hour to myself. To actually hear my thoughts for a minute.

I love my son more than life itself but I find myself sinking. I don't know if I would call it depression, but I want, no - I need - a little freedom. Weekends are busy so it's hard to get time to myself but I find the longer I put off getting a little time to myself, the worse I'm going to feel, and it might turn into depression.

I've mentioned before the lack of good decisions my parents made with me. I've sworn that I will not let anything happen to my little man and so I've kept him home with me where I knew he was safe (well except for the times he fell of the bed or the time he stood at the top of the stairs looking down - my heart thumping and my legs not moving fast enough, thank God he didn't go for it - and the time he pulled the runner off the table and a delicate glass vase shattered all around him, glass shards everywhere, him in the middle of pointed glass - heart thudding once again...you get the idea). I think I've gotten to a place where I need 3 hours of freedom a week so think it's time for him to join a Mother's Morning Out Program for 3 hours one day a week so I can have some time but how can I trust another person with this crazy little boy of mine. I could never live with myself if anything happened to him, nor would I want to. I want to let go of him a little so we can have a little space between us so our time together is better but I'm afraid someone will hurt him.

No one ever told me motherhood was going to be this hard. I honestly thought the newborn days were going to be the hardest and they were. What I didn't know is that it's all relative. The newborn days were the hardest days of my life at that time. Toddlerhood is a heck of a lot more work though and now that he has a mind of his own, I find these days truly challenging. They are the happiest days of my life and they are also the days that are giving me grey hairs. Yes, three of them to be exact.