Morning badness was Katrina's much-too-short nap, and hence mine as well. I went to bed very late last night and was counting on at least a half-hour snooze during Katrina's morning nap. But she napped barely that long, not long enough for me.
I made up for it with a good workout at the Y. It's funny, I used to not like working out on my own, but nowadays I feel so pressed for time that I can make better use of every instant if I can direct the workout myself. I wish I could alternate hard-workout days of running, weights, pushups and abs with a nice gooey yoga or Pilates class every day. I try not to think about dance classes.
But this afternoon....Katrina's much-needed afternoon nap lasted barely 20 minutes, and she was a mess all day. So was I. I was in no mood to carry her around for hours, but that's exactly what ended up happening. By the time I made dinner for the boys, one-handed and one-hipped, my elbows and wrists felt swollen and my back felt like it was going to break in half.
Then a huge blowout with Gabriel. These are almost more emotionally upsetting to me now, since I'm not used to feeling so angry and out of control with him anymore. But the simplest thing escalates and turns into a huge fight, and I just hate how I react and how I feel. I knew the real problem was that I was way tired and needed time off from baby, but couldn't find a way out. I ended up putting in earplugs just to reduce stimuli, desperate for small ways to reduce stress. I felt so guilty when Gabriel later tried sweetly to help calm and entertain Katrina.
I managed to pass some decent time outdoors with Katrina this afternoon, bracing myself for the long haul to bedtime.
She likes grabbing rattles and shaking them around, sometimes startling herself!
Don't be fooled by this smile, it was one of only a few today.
Finally, baby went to bed, though she had to cry to sleep despite my best efforts.
Then I put the boys to bed (Dave had to work late) and actually had a great time making up games to get them to cooperate with the steps in the bedtime process. Things like, we all sit down in a circle and touched our feet so we made a star (making it easy to get pajama bottoms on all at once), or marching in a circle in the room and then I suddenly break away (got them right into the bathroom for bath), and Simon Says for teeth-brushing. They laughed their heads off through the whole thing. Music to my frazzled ears.
It's a safe bet tomorrow will be a better day.
3/12/07
No comments:
Post a Comment