At lunch yesterday, over PB&J, I spent two solid minutes mooing with my one year old. She moos very fervently, with a guttural, punching beginning sound going into a sustained, airy "oooooooo" at the end.
I've had my share of struggles with motherhood. There are many days where I just want to get away from these adorable little crazies. Days where I had two children under age two, and envied my husband, though he was going to a job that he hated, just because he got to get out of the house. Days where I would finally see an adult face and I would jabber incessantly, horrified with myself but feeling unable to stop talking simply because I was so deprived of adult interaction.
I had postpartum depression after Cim was born, and over the last year and a half I've battled through several rounds of depression brought on largely by my husband's stressful and abusive work situation which, among other things, caused him to be gone for 14-16 hours a day for most of the last two years, and to be very mentally and emotionally run down. On top of that, I have a daughter who is just now starting to ALMOST sleep through the night at 15 months old, and lack of sleep wears me down faster than anything else.
But as I sit here now, with Cim purposefully dribbling grape juice down her shirt and Mari waving crayons and squawking like a pterodactyl; as I marched in circles around the driveway yesterday singing "The Ants Go Marching" and "Found a Peanut" with Cim; I realize I not only know this is where I'm supposed to be, I'm happy with it.
(And I decided I'd better write about it so that the next time I'm struggling I can read this and remember, haha.)
I love this post! Mahon has been having a very stressful work situation lately and it has made me so glad it isn't our norm. My hat goes off to you! I know it may not feel like it but I think you have handled an enormous degree of stress beautifully.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I do feel it. My family is all alive and still full of love for each other, and that's saying something for what we just went through (that place is known for breaking up marriages). I'm hoping things get better when we get to Georgia, but I just keep telling myself there are lessons we need to learn through the military. One of them for me is to be less emotionally dependent on Ryan, and to depend on the Lord instead. It's a process I'm still working on. ;-)
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