For a while there I thought Peanut had reverted back to sleeping through to her routine wake up time of 6:45. I happily assumed all our early rising issues had sorted themselves out. Oh no. Yesterday she made a grand entrance at 6 and this morning, earlier still at 5:40.
Nothing wrong with that, in the sense that if she wants to start her day with the birds then who am I to tell her different. Except that's not how it works.
Last night she was exhausted, slept badly and this morning was a royal pain in the bum [moody, cheeky, whiney, miserable, ignoring everything I asked her to do]. I know she's only behaving like this because she's tired [and being day 4 of our working week we probably both are]. I also know, as the grown up, I should know better than to get snappy at her in return.
Unfortunately not. She was driving me crazy because I knew her mood was self inflicted. I knew if she'd stayed in bed for another hour, neither of us would be going through this crabby start to our day. My own frustration and stress at getting us out of the house on time meant I started to bark orders at her. To get dressed, and chastising her for anything else she did which was out of line. Which then left me drowning in working mum guilt:
If I didn't work and put her in nursery for 10 hours each day she wouldn't be so tired in the first place. [And if she wasn't so damn tired maybe she would sleep better, and the circle goes round].
If I didn't work I wouldn't have to berate her to get dressed as we wouldn't be under such pressure to leave the house.
If I didn't work I wouldn't being trying to get myself ready quite as much and would be able to focus on what she needed.
If I didn't work none of this morning's crabbiness would have happened.
Does this make me a wicked mother, or does this make both of us victims of modern day circumstance?
Thursday 31 January 2008
Wicked mother
3 comments:
Although I know you can't help but see this as being a symptom of your being a working mom, as a SAHM I'm here to tell you that it happens here too. My kids are notorious for getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning, and then punishing everyone else for it for the rest of the day. I don't envy you having to add work into that mix - but look at it this way, at least when she's at nursery her crabby mood is *their* problem, not yours! *grin*
I think you are a wonderful mama having emotions that all of us have or HAVE had at some point.
Tomorrow is Friday and things should begin to look up. By the end of the weekend, all should be good.
Life is all about cycles and it is hard to break them, especially when it is the horrible- too tired to sleep toddler cycle. Just because you stay at home doesn't mean the sleeping issue would be fixed- you could be stuck inside on a rainy day with a toddler who is bored and doesn't sleep because they are not stimulated enough.
And another thing- your comment your left me, I can't begin to describe how excited that makes me to think that all this preggo nastiness could be girl related- I would love to have a girl, it would be awesome, even if I don't have a room to paint it girly pink.
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