Have you ever had a particularly awesome day? A day where nothing can get you down, and you just sail through your trials smoothly without even the slightest dampening of spirit? I had one of those days a couple of weeks ago. Nothing stressed me out, it was amazing....I felt fantastic, almost too fantastic.
It was a typical day. Dinner was in the crockpot and I met my good friend and her two little ones, who are exactly the same age as my two, for a walk in the wilderness with my dog. We chose a path that she had been on before, but not in the summer. I had never been there. It truly was the wilderness. The paths were overgrown and bugs were everywhere...and of course we had no bug spray. It has been raining forever around here, so the paths were covered in thick, thick mud, the kind of mud that will suck your shoes of if you stand still in it for too long. I kept telling the kids to run quick through the muddy spots so their shoes wouldn't get sucked off. We almost did lose a few shoes. My dog of course was a muddy mess three minutes into the walk and was loving every second. I was loving every second too. The two, almost two year olds, decided that they didn't want to walk, they wanted to be carried...and we didn't have our back packs. The walk that was supposed to last for about 45 minutes turned into two hours because we got lost. In our defense though, the trail markers were kind of confusing. So carrying babies on our hips and urging our four year olds along, my friend and I trudged through the wilderness. I said at one point that we were like those pioneer Mamas following the wagon trains carrying their babies for ours on end. My arms didn't get as tired as they usually do, I guess they knew how important their job was. After we came to the same wooden bridge for the third time, I wondered how I would ever make it to my evening commitment on time. Surprisingly that thought did not stress me out. I hate being late for anything so it was strange that I wasn't upset. Finally two hours after we left our cars, my friend led us out of the wilderness. I felt exhilarated. We were all completely covered in mud. I attacked my daughter first, she was wearing shorts and was so brown from mud she looked like she had hairy legs from thigh to ankle. I cleaned her up as best as I could, removing her shorts, socks and sneakers and wiping her down with baby wipes. I put her in the car like that, planning on putting both kids in the tub the second I got home. Then I went after my son. He hadn't walked as much, but he was still pretty muddy. I pulled off his socks, shoes and jeans, and found a tick crawling on his leg. This did not freak me out, like I thought it would. It wasn't biting him yet, so I flicked it off and we headed home after I toweled off my exhausted, but very happy, muddy dog.
Once home, I washed both kids and checked them over for ticks very carefully. Then I showered and checked myself. I was supermomming it. I had them both clean in about six minutes. They were eating dinner when their dad came home, we were all cleaned up and out the door on time. We made it to church....I felt something crawling on me. I couldn't believe it was a tick. I flushed it. I had showered and was baffled that there was a tick on me still. Lesson learned...showering does not wash off or scare away ticks. When we got home, I checked the kids over again when I put them in their pjs. They were clear. Then after they were in bed, my husband checked me over. There was a tick on me, right under my butt cheek. It was embedded....after several hilarious circumstances and a trip to the store to buy some supplies by my husband....the tick was removed.
That was just a day, full of circumstances that would have normally stressed me out. Being lost, being late, being covered in icky insects....I felt good, like I could handle anything. But....alas, that supermom feeling didn't last. This past cycle has been challenging for me. I find that my more depressed days are directly hormonally related and every three or four months I have a cycle that just hits me harder than other ones do. Typically my "down" days are during the PMS stage and the Menstrual Stage of my cycle. Sometimes it will last a few hours, sometimes a whole day. If it is a bad cycle, those down days will also hit around ovulation.
I also had to take into consideration that there were other factors at play this time around. My four year old had her tonsils and adenoids removed right in the middle. I was 100% sure this was the right decision for her health, and I felt good about it. The night before her surgery was when I began to realize that I was feeling anxious about it. I barely slept that night and then had to get up at 5 am to get her to the hospital on time. That was night one of sleep deprivation. And it just continued over the next two weeks. I was up with her to manage her pain, and to take her to the ER in the middle of the night on night two after the surgery. She had barely had anything to drink all day and started vomiting early in the evening. The pain medication seemed to be making her really nauseous. We were really concerned about dehydration, hence the ER trip at 1 am. That ER trip was traumatic for both of us, and I won't go in to detail. Luckily they gave us some anti nausea medication that seemed to take care of the problem for Anne and she began to show steady improvement after that. Once she started feeling better and stopped waking up in the night because of the pain, I was PMSing. I don't often have anxiety issues at bedtime, but this round I was having a really hard time falling asleep and having really vivid and exhausting dreams when I was asleep.
I know for me that sleep deprivation is the biggest trigger of my PPD. I start doubting myself. I start feeling like I am doing everything wrong or that I am just caught in a rut. I start to worry that my PPD is turning into Chronic Depression. I know that can happen....what if it does? I start feeling like a Super Bomb of a Mom.
I guess the best thing I can do is not write about it when I am at my worst. Because if I look back on during a moment when things aren't so bad, I can see some of the things that are okay or even better.
I have come to the conclusion that I am not a fan of hot, humid summer weather. That doesn't make me a bad Mom. We can stay in the air conditioning on a hot day. I do feel guilty that there have been a lot of either really hot days or really raining days lately, and also Anne recovering from surgery days, so we have not done as much outside as we could, but I can try to do better.
Anne has been a bit challenging lately, so we have upped the ante on her behavior chart this week. She has been improving so much with the behaviors that we were originally looking at, but lately, she has started in with some attitude issues and is getting mouthy and disrespectful, so we are cracking down on this. She had a tough week and did not get a reward this week, but I am already seeing her start to catch herself (sometimes) and rephrase what she is trying to say....so....progress.
The most amazing thing that I have noticed lately are real moments of clarity. I have spent so much of my life the last two years, just trying to make it through the day, and get done all the Mom things that need to be done, that I don't often just STOP. I have caught myself doing this quite often lately. I can think of multiple times this past week where I have just stopped and totally soaked in a conversation with Anne. She is so hysterical, and has such an amazing imagination. I love listening to her. I have also been stopping and soaking up lots of little boy cuddles and kisses. I am really starting to see the little person he is becoming and how funny he can be. We have had some tickle time, I love hearing his little belly laugh. I also have caught myself just listening and watching them play, either alone or together and just enjoying watching them be their own little selves. This might not seem like a big deal, but it really is. This is not something I have often been able to do....and suddenly I have realized that I am doing it all the time. I don't know...it makes me feel more alive somehow.
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| My beautiful boy who always makes me smile! |
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| Playing and giggling together! |
Today was actually not really the best day. I am still exhausted, sleep has not improved for me lately, and I am up writing this entry because I couldn't settle down to sleep. There were some things that went wrong this day, and negative emotions were felt more strongly than I would have liked, but I can sit down and look over the past few weeks and see that the times I thought were bad have some strong, strong light shining through. Clarity is starting to come through the darkest moments. I CAN still fight this, the light is shining. I will always have challenges to overcome but things are changing. If the gift of clarity is coming to me, then the strength to change the things that really need to be changed is coming.
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