An exercise in melodrama

Motherhood makes me tired. In fact, I ought to be sleeping now so I'll keep this brief. The physical toll is, as suspected, pretty exhausting. The utter lack of slumber and the breastfeeding and the back pain when carrying, rocking, or bouncing my child to sleep - they all add up to a very physically demanding role. Kenny's starting to think this is what's making me so susceptible to the colds I seem to keep getting...a running-on-empty immune system. Whatever the physical ailments, we're surviving.

It's the emotional aspect that keeps throwing me off. I hate it. This motherhood thing is making me an emotionally compromised wreck. When Jett smiles or coos or we have a really great day overall, like when he's not fussy and sleeps through the night - I'm overjoyed. Kenny tells me not to get so excited because the next day could be terrible...but I can't help it. I just feel so hopeful on those days that this parenting thing can be done and will prove ultimately rewarding. And then there are the more frequent days where I wonder why I willing signed up for this. When we've made progress in sleeping through the night and getting a bedtime routine down, there will be a night where Jett sleeps for two hours at a time and won't go back to bed for all the tricks we try. On those days, I'm left rather blue, wondering why my child can be great one day and awful the next and why I got my hopes up that the good days would be the norm...

I feel crazy most of the time in this drama queen role. Super psyched for a smile and wracked with despair when I'm sleep deprived and at witt's end that my child won't sleep. And I cry at the drop of a hat now. I've returned to the office this past week - and was feeling guilty that I didn't feel guilty about being away from my child. Aye!! I've got to get out of my head. I'm overthinking everything and it's not doing me ANY good except making me feel like the star of my own melodrama.

In other news, Jett's in daycare and it's great. It really is establishing structure for him in sleeping and eating. I'm LOVING being back to work and feeling a sense of accomplishment when I can complete a project but not get five minutes to sweep the floor at home...Jett's gotten two colds now and is not sleeping well, which is understandable when he can't breathe through his little nose. He's not slept through the night for the last week or so...which is right on par with how long I've been back at work...oh well. Luckily, I've learned to function fairly effectively on 4-5 hours. We're looking forward to starting Jett on some rice cereal next month, and I'm having mixed thoughts on slowly weaning him off breast milk. I'm already not producing enough to feed him an exclusive daily diet of breast milk, in not pumping enough while at work or during the night and having never really recovered the supply I had prior to my back-to-back colds. I really want to be able to provide for him in that regard, as much as he needs, but I'd also like to gain a little more freedom that formula-feeding affords....and for Jett to be able to sit on my lap without him staring at me as a food source the whole time...

Now for some precious sleep, until my son gets up in an hour...