So is there something about being three months out after having a baby that makes a girl uber emotional? I mean, I know I'm entering No Hair Land and that has to be some sort of hormonal thing. It happened at three months with Harrison, too. All of the hair that didn't shed during my pregnancy all decided to make a grand exit leaving me to chop my hair and then deal with the really odd regrowth that basically gave me a ring of new hair around the crown of my head. My hairdresser actually said it was one of the strangest things she's ever seen! My head is still recovering from that fall out and now I've started to notice that I'm leaving strands all over the house and baby again. Yea. I don't want to do a big cut, but may have to if if gets really bad.
But it's not just the hair loss that has me wondering. This has just been a rough week with lots of ups and downs. As usual, a lot of our (my) mood(s) center around sleep. I've decided to take the Super Nanny approach to Harrison's naps, so each time he pops out of bed and comes over to open his door (yes, he can open EVERY door in the new house), I walk him back and put him into bed. The first day this took 45 minutes and was then followed by an hour and a half long nap (very good by HD's nap standards). The second day took an hour and a half that was followed by another hour and a half nap. This day was much worse, though, because he decided to empty the contents of his closets during the process. Because those entire contents were being tossed at me, I didn't do as good of a job keeping my cool (hello, hormones?!) as I did the first day, but I take the fact that he slept both days as a good sign. Today is Round Three and so far, I've only had to do about 15 minutes of walking him back. Now, he's not had a dirty diaper yet so sabotage poop, as I call it, could still cause us problems, but I'm prepared for that.
I know some people won't/don't fight these sleep battles and I know Harrison's at an age where he might start to grow out of a nap, but he is still giving me he classic sleep signs (twirling his hair is the biggest one) plus he just never stops the rest of the day so he pretty much has to have some down time, even if it is forced. I actually don't even care if he sleeps during the day, but he has to learn to stay in his room so we can both have some peace, quiet, and space.
But here's the other sign that something is going on with me and my emotions. Today, on our way home from MOPS, I swung through and picked up a coffee. This is my version of "putting my power on" and gearing up for the pop-up routine for nap. Both kids were content in the car, so we went to drive around and look for trains (a game we like to play in the car w/ HD) while I enjoyed (inhaled) my mocha. As we were driving up Highway 281, we came upon an accident at an intersection. We had heard the sirens about 10 minutes prior as we were loading up in the van, but to come across them again and see that there were police and an ambulance and firefighters actually trying to help someone out of the car hit me pretty hard.
Even though we are horrible about going to church, I am still a spiritual person. It is one of my habits to say a prayer whenever I hear a siren, even if I have no idea what kind of siren it is or where they might be headed. I always ask a quick "please be with them" and go about my day. So today, as we drove by the cars and service people, I started to ask Harrison to say a prayer for the people involved. We don't pray with him regularly, so I don't know why I thought he would even know what I was talking about, but I couldn't even the request out - I got entirely choked up and was really glad that no one could see just how emotional and raw I was in that moment.
During a week/month/season where I feel like I am struggling in my daily life as a mother, it really put me back a step to be in the van with my two beautiful children who are healthy and happy (most of the time, anyway) as we passed by someone who was really struggling. I actually have no idea what the details of the accident were or if anyone was even seriously hurt, but it was a stark reminder that I have so much to be grateful for and even if my day-to-day isn't sunshine and roses, I can put my power on and get through it. That doesn't mean that I have to pretend my life or myself or my children are perfect. It just means that I need to keep moving forward and ask a few more "please be with them"s for others as well as myself. A little help and honesty never hurt anyone, even when hormones are involved.
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