I’m going to go ahead and tell you about my day (so far, it’s not over yet!), because although Clara is a really, really easy baby (granted, I have no other babies to compare her to, but based on comments from other moms, she’s an easy baby), we have our share of rough days and I wouldn’t feel very transparent if I didn’t tell you about them.
I started out tired, which actually isn’t the norm. Clara woke up at 2am, 5am, and 7am to eat. Granted, she did sleep from 7:30pm-2am (yay!), but I didn’t go to bed until 11pm so I didn’t get very much uninterrupted sleep last night. Also, she almost never wakes up before 5am so I just wasn’t mentally prepared for the extra feeding. Thank goodness for Starbucks and Pumpkin Spice Lattes (oh yes, I ordered the ‘typical’ drink because I was feeling so tired and I needed something happy this morning).
We went to my moms’ church group where her diaper leaked a bit through the leg-holes, getting poop on her outfit. I must say, we have very, very few diaper accidents with cloth diapers and this was only the third time she’s ever gotten poop on her outfit. Still, of course it happened today while we were out, when I really didn’t want to deal with it! I was just thankful she didn’t get any on me! (Knock on wood, Tim and I have never gotten baby poop on our outfits!)
Then we went to Target. I went in for cranberries and pretty much knew it was a mistake as I was pulling into the parking lot. Cranberries are about $2… yet I managed to spend $200… YIKES. On the plus side, I got Christmas decorations (which were a necessity since we actually had ZERO until today), leggings, shirts, a blazer… You know, the basics. I am not proud of this, but I am very happy with the purchases. That was the highlight of the day so far. Clara loves being out and about, so she stared at everything in the store and was quite happy the entire time. I would go to Target every day, but I’m fairly certain my wallet can’t handle the strain.
Once we got home, Clara decided she needed to eat every 45 minutes, which is the least fun thing ever, and I’m now afraid my nipples may fall off at any given second. They don’t hurt, but they’re tired. You may be wondering, is it possible for nipples to be tired? My answer is yes.
Clara can now roll, so she rolls until she runs into something… In this case, the couch.
Then I looked into the fridge to see how much (breast)milk I had in there, and what did I find? None! But I knew I had pumped some so I looked in the breast pump bag and I found it. It had been in there for days. Ah, spoiled breastmilk. Pumping is not my favorite activity, so the act of throwing away my boob milk killed me a little inside. Also, we’re leaving for a few hours tonight (without Clara) so I need to leave some milk for her. I guess frozen milk will have to do, and I just hope she drinks it! (We haven’t tried it before). Well, as I was on the phone telling Tim about this ‘catastrophe’, Clara decided to puke even more of my breastmilk all over me. Luckily, I wasn’t wearing clothes anyway, since I decided to take them off since I was removing my shirt so often to feed her anyway. Ah, simplification.
Finally, after dealing with a crying/fussy/pukey/poopy/eating baby for a few too many hours, Tim came home to rescue me! Now he’s playing with Clara while I’m typing this blog post (writing helps me to regain my sanity) and I’m about to run off and finish cranberry sauce (homemade) for Thanksgiving Friendsgiving in 3.6 seconds (approximately).
I guess this day is pretty typical, really. I haven’t eaten breakfast nor lunch and I’m typing this with one hand while I’m shoveling leftover pizza into my mouth. I’m frazzled and unshowered and still tired and still hungry, but Clara is on the floor near me and is enjoying her tummy time with daddy, and it’s hard not to be thankful in this moment.
Even if life is messy today, it’s beautiful in it’s own way.
[However, the point of this post is not ‘parenting is always wonderful even when it’s not!’, the point of this post is that life/parenting isn’t glamorous and pretty all of the time (or ever) and some days I just want to surf the internet and not be at the beck and call of a 4 month old. But today is not that day and this was my rant!]
Now I’m off to get ready for Friendsgiving. Thankfully my MIL is on her way over to watch Clara for a few hours and this is something I’m definitely thankful for!
