A "Revelation" in Mothering

For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a mother. My opportunity for motherhood came much later than I anticipated. I always figured it would come naturally to me. I have always been great with children and had an instinct about the needs of children. That instinct has made me very successful in my profession as a speech-language pathologist, so much so that I sought specialized training to work with children with multiple and severe disabilities. I worked with the infants and toddlers that no one else knew how to treat, the ones that intimidated even the really good therapists. My typical clients were hearing and visually impaired and had cerebral palsy, or were visually impaired and had cerebral palsy, or had feeding difficulties along with any combination of the above. I thought that this would serve to make me a better mother once I had the opportunity to be a mother.

While my instincts about children and the specialized training have been helpful to me, my own child has presented me with challenges that I could never have anticipated. No one warned me that mommy hormones mixed with sleep deprivation could cloud my judgment and make me doubt my own ability to give my child what he needed. No one told me that my child would have needs that even a seasoned mother would have difficulty meeting. No one told me that those initial feelings that shook my confidence in the first few months of my son's life would still be with me two years later. I find myself struggling almost daily. I am hard on myself. I feel like I should be better at this, that I should be better able to meet my own child's needs, that I should be a better mother to him, that I should have more patience, and the list of negative thoughts goes on.

I've learned that being a therapist is a lot easier than being a mother, even with the most challenging of patients. When I went back to work when my son was 5-months-old, I realized just how much harder it was to be a mother than it was to go to work and see my patients. It was shocking to me. I never consciously compared those two parts of me before going back to work. Of course being a therapist is easier than being a mother, but I never thought about it before. Nothing in my experiences has led me to believe that anything is harder than being a mother.

So why, oh why, did I think that mothering would just come so naturally to me? I have no idea. Naivety, the essence of youth when I started that thought process so many years ago (naivety), or just plain cluelessness?

My "revelation"? I realized that it is OK for me to struggle with being a mother. I realized that I am way too hard on myself. I didn't have any specialized training in motherhood prior to becoming one so how could I have expected that I would just know how to do this?

With my "revelation", I have made a conscious decision to stop being so hard on myself, to stop my negativity. I know that this is not something that I can just turn off and that it is going to be a process, but I feel relieved already.

Nap Time

It's 4pm on Saturday afternoon. My son (2yrs, 4months) has been asleep for almost an hour now. On a super duper amazing day he goes to sleep without a fuss and is asleep in less than 30 minutes. On a good day it takes around an hour to get him down for his nap. On a day like today and at least 2 days out of the week it takes over an hour and there is a lot of crying and screaming involved and, no, it isn't me doing the crying and screaming, although I may feel like it and some days I am brought to tears and even yelling over it. And let's not even talk about bedtime - bedtime makes nap time seem like a joke.

We have had issues from birth with his sleep. While these issues have changed over the last 2 years, they are still a great challenge to us. We do not believe in Crying it Out, although sometimes our son gives us no choice (continue reading for an explanation). We have a nap time routine and a bed time routine. Nap time involves eating lunch, I make sure he starts eating lunch no later than noon, so that I can have him in the bed absolutely no later than 1pm. After he finishes eating, he puts his plate in the sink, I take him to go potty, put his nap diaper on, and get him in the bed. If he isn't already screaming and crying at this point and he will let me snuggle him some, I love on him - hugs and kisses, kind words of praise and encouragement, sit with him and get him settled under the covers - those are the super duper days and sometimes the good days. More often than not, he starts fussing about nap time before we even get to the bed and won't let me hug him or kiss him or stay with him. He has a royal melt down and yells "go Mama." So I have no choice but to leave him and let him cry by himself. If I don't leave his screaming fit only worsens. I usually let him have his melt down for several minutes and then I go back in and if he lets me console him then I will. Sometimes that works and he settles in and goes to sleep. Sometimes after the crying and screaming has stopped he still doesn't go to sleep, but rather plays in the bed, or gets out of the bed and then I have to go and tell him to get back in the bed, causing yet another round of crying. This can go on for over an hour, some days over two hours. What he does is so much more than your typical two-year-old tantrum.

Today this lasted for over an hour. As usual, I am frazzled, tired, frustrated and angry. I don't know what to do and I am sure that with all of my professional training I should know what to do. Since I can't figure out what to do to help my child or to help myself from feeling this way then surely I am the one with the problem, that I am the one doing something wrong. I tell myself that any mother dealing with this would feel this way, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

I can tell you what will happen once he falls asleep. He will sleep soundly for at least 2 hours, sometimes up to 3. Thankfully, once I can get him to sleep he does take a good nap. When he wakes, he will be hungry because it will be almost supper time (because he took so long to go to sleep and then slept 2-3 hours) and he will immediately be fussy, irritable and crying. He won't be ready to go to sleep on time because his nap lasted so late into the afternoon.....and then we start all over again.

I feel alone and isolated. I've tried talking to other mothers, even my own family. My sister makes a point to tell me that she doesn't have any trouble with my son, it's just me, that I can't handle him, even to go so far as to tell me on a regular basis that I shouldn't have any more children since I can't handle that one that I have. She has never even tried to keep him during nap time, or over night, or for more than three hours at a time for that matter. I don't feel like my in-laws understand why we don't want to plan to do things that interfere with nap time. We've tried to tell them but they don't seem to understand. I've had friends tell me that when their child(ren) act(s) out it is because they need more loving attention. If my child would let me give him more loving attention, I would give it to him, but that is impossible to do when your child is screaming and yelling and is only upset more by your trying to touch or console him.

And just in case any of you are starting to wonder if my child has any sort of social interaction disorder, don't worry, he does not. He loves to be around people and other children, is loving and caring, kind and conscientious - just not when it is time for his nap or time to go to bed. Mind you, he is stubborn and strong willed all of time, but that we can deal with, it's the behaviors that center around sleep that are so extreme.

I'm not expecting anyone who reads this to have any answers, I just felt the need to write some of it today. The stress of this day after day just wears on me and sometimes it just feels like too much for me to keep all on the inside. I'm taking my vitamins and lots of omega supplements, exercising regularly and trying to get enough sleep at night to help me manage the stress, but I sure wish I knew how to make this better for all of us. It hurts my heart so much to see him so upset and hear him so distressed.

Adventures in Cleaning, Cooking and Frugality

Cleaning: Wow, have I been busy the last few weeks! I've been working my usual 2 days a week in the hospital and spending the rest of my time working at home. I am following FlyLady daily routines more closely and it is making a big difference in our home. I feel encouraged and hopeful. I feel as if I really might get back to some sort of normalcy in my home. What a wonderful feeling! Just today I cleaned all of my kitchen cabinets, door frames and trim. I wiped down the refrigerator and the louver doors of my laundry room. I had two loads of laundry out on the clothes line before 10am.

Cooking: We did something new this past month, we ordered a fruit and veggie box from Angel Food Ministries. They have a new "Latin Flavors" box, and it was well worth the money! We have very much enjoyed it and have already ordered our "Latin Flavors" box for June. On Sunday, I cooked Chicken and Chayote with some of the chayote squash, onions, garlic, potatoes and calabacita that came in the box. I also made Calabacita bread for dessert. Oh my, it was good! I made the Calabacita bread with unrefined sugar, organic eggs and organic whole spelt flour. It was not only good to eat, but good for you. Husband and I even had leftovers for lunch at work yesterday.

Frugality: Since making my own laundry detergent was such a success, I decided to try making my own liquid hand soap. I used the recipe found here. I used two 3oz bars of Nivea soap that I found at Big Lots. It was some that I bought for the bath, but didn't like it as much as other bath soap, it was a wonderfully moisturizing bath bar so I thought it would make a great moisturizing hand soap. I was very surprised, it was easy to make and made the mose luxurious feeling hand soap.

Here is a picture of it when I just finished making it. You can see how much it made, that is a gallon size ice cream bucket.


And here is my beautiful, frugally made, hand soap in the dispenser on my bathroom counter. It was fun and easy to make the soap, not very different from making my own laundry detergent, but a smaller batch.