snoring sucks

I snore.  I am loathe to admit it but I do.  It is a fairly recent phenomena and it seems to be only during allergy season.  Unfortunately for my husband, that lasts pretty much all winter for me.

I have lived with a snorer before.  I wanted to smother him with his pillow because I was so tired all the time.  (just kidding!)  He refused to believe that he snored.  Of course his disbelief in any kind of personal flaws should have been a clue about him in general, but I digress.  My point is that I was on the other side of this bed.  I was the one ready to scream every single night, who slept with music on (pre ipod even!) and who tried to fall asleep before he did in hopes that I would stay asleep.  I feel pretty terrible that I am putting my husband through this.  But I am sure he feels worse.

I am hoping that losing weight will help the issue, but that (losing weight) has not happened yet.  I try to sleep on my side, but Vinnie says that when he looks over I am on my back or on my side and not at all on the pillow.  I am thinking of trying one of those anti-snore pillows because I think as long as I can force myself to sleep on my side, and follow some other basic snore remedies I should be okay. But I have to stay on the pillow.  And apparently there is a learning curve in using it.  I am a little concerned about a pillow that I have to learn how to use.  I will give it a shot.  It got decent amazon reviews.

Maybe I just need to get enough sleep for the snoring to stop...

Do you snore?  Does your partner?  How do you both survive???

I hate being sick

I have been sick for a whole week.  On Sunday and Monday it was just kind of starting and I felt under the weather.  Tuesday I felt pretty terrible, but it was a half day at work so I just toughed it out and stayed at my desk as much as possible.  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I was in bed or on the couch.  I thought I was getting better on Thursday so I cancelled my doctor appointment.  Friday I felt like hell and my eyes were stuck shut in the morning.  The one eye was completely blood shot and goopy.  Blech.

The doctor said I was infected from the neck up.  I was put on z-pack and eye drops.  I still had my Shutterfly party since I essentially took 3 doses by then of the z-pack and 8 doses of eye drops.  The party ended up being fun, even with only a few of us; but tired me out completely.  I woke up Sunday feeling, you guessed it, terrible.  We made the drive out to the Poconos to pick up Lilly and I started to feel better.

The plan is to go into work tomorrow.  Vin thinks that I should stay home and rest one more day.  I probably won't listen to him because I have a full day tomorrow already.  I can't afford to be sick another  minute!

I had so many plans for this past week.  I got absolutely nothing done.  And in fact, I think my room is in worse condition than it was before.  Boo for being sick.  BUT, I do have to give credit where credit is due.  My hubby let me sleep and rest while he watched Lilly and he went to get me soup and other assorted food items and medicine.

the working mom dilemma?

I thought that being at work all day would give me the patience with Lilly when I was with her. Meaning, that since I was spending significantly less time with her, I would not lose my patience when she has a tantrum or gets overtired and cranky. This was a great thing I heard happens from other working moms. LIARS!!! Okay, not really, but I am not finding that to be true. I find that the more time I am away from her the less I am able to put up the tantrums and crankiness. Also, in the little time that I have with her each day I am also: getting ready for work in the morning, cooking dinner, packing lunches, doing laundry, trying to keep the house in order, doing homework, and oh, spending time with my precious little one.

I also think that I was more in touch with what is typical behavior when I was a SAHM. Kind of like I was conditioned to expect it.

Another thing that is MUCH harder to handle as a working mom is night-time waking. It was hard enough when I was a SAHM. Now, it is terrible. Even if I can get her back to sleep in bed with me, the rest of my night's sleep is not as good. My average bedtime is midnight, waking at 6ish. If she wakes up at 4, I only get 4 hours of good sleep and then 2 hours of mediocre sleep.

I won't even touch right now the stress between Vin and I. I knew working would make things stressful. That I have heard from friends. The money situation gets better, but not great. And every other stress factor sky rockets. I think it was surprise to him, though. I have a feeling he thought we would be on easy street once I started working. Life is never that simple.

The good news is that Lilly is really loving her daycare now. I am really getting into my position now at work. I (think) I am doing a good job and am hopefully impressing the powers to be so that I can hopefully obtain a permanent position.

I think the bottom line is that there are difficult things to handle whether you are a working mom or a SAHM. Maybe that is why there is often a battle between the two. It is really our own internal battles coming out to play. I could very easily say to a SAHM that her job is so much easier, based on my own experiences and wants and needs. But when I was a SAHM it was not easy. Money was tight to the point of being non-existent. And lets face it, it can be lonely. Thank God for social media like facebook and MOL and Mothers & More.

Anyway, if you have not guessed, I am writing this at 2am because Lilly has been awake for over an hour. After losing my patience, Vin stepped in and I needed to write to release some of this stress. Writing has always been good for my soul. I think my blood pressure has come back down to normal so wish me luck as I try to get some sleep tonight.

catching up

In the past 2 weeks or so I have been really busy updating my resume, writing a cover letter and applying for some jobs online. I hate writing my resume. I always feel like I can make it better and so then I never feel like it is finished. Oh well...I have to start sending it out ASAP.

Lilly has learned to climb. This is huge because she now wants to climb everything! She is so funny but now I am so nervous that she is going to hurt herself. What happened to the old-fashioned play pen. The pack&play is just not an option to keep her contained anymore because she is too tall for it.

This past weekend while we were out at my in-laws in the Poconos Lilly started splashing in a puddle on the driveway. I eventually moved her to the grass because I was really uneasy with her on the asphalt. I just worry about her pretty face getting scratched or hurt. Well, when I took her in to nurse her and put her in for a nap she was getting so antsy. Every time she rubbed her hands together she was flinching and making little cries. It turns out that she had scraped the pads of her fingers raw playing in the puddles. I felt terrible. I had tears in my eyes as I was trying to see the extent of the damage. She seems to have recovered now, but it took a couple days. Every time she would pick up a strawberry she would drop it. How sad is that? If you see the pictures, she had a great time with her Grandma & Grandpa & aunts & Anthony.

Some good news is that she more or less has a nap schedule now. She has been consistently taking solid morning and afternoon naps. She even slept for 2 5-hour stretches last night, with a nursing break around 2. In some ways I cannot wait to get rid of the morning nap. I am totally tied down with the 2 nap thing. But I am so grateful that she is sleeping that I try not to complain.

Another good thing is that Vinnie and I have been arguing less. Is it reaching that 1 year mark of parenthood? Is it less sleep deprivation? Maybe, but whatever it is I am thankful.

I have a Flickr account now. Check out my pictures! I am in the slow process of uploading all the old pictures. Unfortunately a lot of pictures when the external hard drive got accidentally reformatted. Luckily I have them on Shutterfly and/or Snapfish so I have to order CDs with the pictures. Most of Lilly's birth and newborn pictures were among those lost so I definitely want to get those CDs soon. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

Lilly is now awake so I am off to get her!

married life

Do you ever just want the arguing and bickering between you and your husband to end? Often it just seems like an ongoing battle that we take a break from and pick it right back up. Thankfully it is usually over minor things like cleaning and cooking and what's for dinner. But seriously? I really would like to be able to just have a weekend during which we have NO ARGUMENTS. Our common arguments go like this:

Please keep in mind that this is decidedly one-sided.

Me: I thought you were not sleeping in today.

He: I didn't. I slept until 9 like I said I would.

Me: It is 9:45 and considering I have been up since before 7am with our daughter, even 9 is sleeping in.

He: I'm sorry, okay. (in a slightly churlish voice)

Me: Whatever. Now it is time for her morning nap.

(later on)

He: Why don't you take a break?

Me: Because the house is a disaster, we have no clean laundry and we have nothing in the house to eat for dinner.

(sometimes arguments ensue over this.)

Before dinner, as I cook, sometimes with a toddler screaming at my legs.

He: Why is she crying like this?

Me: She is hungry and tired because we are eating way too late for a 1 year-old.

He: Stop crying!

Me: Don't talk to her like that!

He: Like what?

After dinner is done and baby is bathed, changed, read to and nursed...all by me...
He: What are you doing?

Me: I am cleaning the kitchen. I cannot go to bed with it like this. I need to be able to come down in the morning, make my coffee, which is decaf to begin with, and get breakfast for Lilly.

He: I cleaned all her toys.

Me: Thank you. (This has entailed everything going haphazardly into any bin or basket. I know she is too young to realize that her toys are organized or not, but I like them organized so I can see where everything is. Also, I get aggravated when I see her pull trash or non-toys out of the toy bin.) Sometimes I fix things right then, if there are obvious things that need fixing. Otherwise I wait until morning and he is at work.

He: What? What did I do wrong?

Me: It's just that.... (use your imagination)

He: anything said with a tone or curse words interspersed in daily conversation

Me: Why are you saying it like that? and Watch your mouth around the baby!

He: What tone? What are you talking about?



Or like tonight, I came down from putting Lilly in bed for the 2nd time and did a load of laundry. I then came up and worked on the kitchen for probably about an hour. I cleaned up meat juice that had spilled all over the counters and floor. I put away the dishwasher and washed the dirty dishes. I put away any food or condiments form our dinner. Then when he was shooting me with foam darts, he was wondering why I was not amused. When I asked why he just lied on the couch the entire time, he said that he can never do anything right anyway. I know that this can be true. It seems that our arguments are mostly about me wanting him to do more. From what my married friends, especially those with young children, say, this is all too common. So what do people do? Give up? Just do all the work (cooking, cleaning, laundry, baby caring) themselves?

I have been working on letting things go. My mom always says, "Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy." I think I need to concentrate on being happy. But damn it...I am right!

Okay, I do have to add that Vinnie does do things for me. This morning he made me and Lilly pancakes. He manned the grill while I did the sides and fed Lilly. And he went out to the store to get stuff so I could make cookies for the playgroup tomorrow. Maybe, for a guy, that is a lot in one day. And I am not being sarcastic about this. Lastly, but most importantly, he goes to work every day and provides for us.

so....

I really have nothing to say because I am pretty overwhelmed and cranky. I should say, I have nothing POSITIVE to say. In the past 10 days I have dealt with: a sick baby, a teething baby, a sick husband, a final grad school project, husband's birthday, a short trip down the shore, a leaking car, dealing with said car company, car shopping and now getting ready for Lilly's 1st birthday party. Oh and let's throw my period in on top of that...cause that's always fun. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. And for some reason Lilly is refusing to sleep in her crib. Great.

overwhelmed and NOT loving it

Tonight was one of those nights that I was warned about from all my friends who were moms before me.  It was not pretty.  

Okay, I will add a little more info.  Sleep deprived mommies and cranky daddies do not mesh.  It happens more than I like to admit to myself.  I know I am a full time nursing mom.  My daughter has only learned to take a bottle from my mom, so far.  She will not take it from my husband.  This makes things difficult.  She is very attached to me right now.  But that doesn't mean I have to be the only one to hold her, comfort her, whatever.  I feel like I am being punished for doing this amazing, wondrous thing.  

I know that this too will pass.  I got through the first few weeks after a c-section and breast feeding issues, right?  Okay, maybe things will look brighter in the morning.  Or after I get some sleep.  I just keep replaying conversations with my girlfriends in my mind.  Ones in which they told me that they thought their marriages would not survive the baby's 1st birthday.  Because they all did.  Some are even on baby #2!

Okay, I am going to try to force my gritty eyes to close and stay that way.  At least until the next feeding an hour from now!