Monday, June 26, 2006

The silver lining to Mommy Guilt...

Yawn. I am still a bit sleepy... and it's nearly 11:00am.

We went to the ILs on Saturday, for a HOT day of fun & a TON of BBQ ribs. It was really great to see them, and hang out, and do our usual family poker game. We got home at around 2:30 am... which is earlier than usual, considering we leave at 1:30 sometimes. So, when you add a 2 hour drive to that... well, it's icky sometimes.

Travis woke up at 7am yesterday morning when I got up to pee. He cried like normal.... milk bandit just wants to nurse all early morning. Usually, however, I get back into bed, give him his boob, and he's happy, and we're all back to sleep.

Nope, not yesterday. He started REALLY crying. Like a pissed off, hurt, and just couldn't be consoled by my normal shushing, nursing, patting mommy tactics. Instead of getting up with him.... well, I got irritated and snapped a little at him, instead. Jeff got up, and walked with him, and swayed, patted, etc. Then, he finally calmed down, fell back asleep, and we were all able to rest after.

I felt incredibly bad. And, selfish. And, guilty. Travis wasn't trying to make me mad. He needed comfort. And I put my own tired crankiness ahead of him. :(
We got up a couple of hours later... and I still felt bad. I had apologized to Jeff at least a half-dozen times.

We went to breakfast with my dad at our favorite restaurant. Travis ate a ton of breakfast. So did we. We were SO stuffed... and then the lethargic laziness started to set in on the way home. Travis nursed a bit when we got home. Then he fell asleep.

My friend called and came by to pick up her carpet steamer I've had in Travis' room since December. She moved away, so, it was really the first chance I've had to give it back.

Long story short... after the steamer gone, I took a step back. I looked at his room, and realized what needed to be done. We had WAY too much stuff in there that needed to be elsewhere. Like 1/3 of his room was filled with misc. storage stuff, boxes, framed art we haven't put up yet, empty electronics boxes, you name it. So, I started to go through and clean it up, putting old toys into a box for storage. Then I put the too-advanced toys and really big clothes away for storage, too. Jeff joined me after a couple of hours... and we went to town. We consolidated all the storage stuff into smaller boxes. We went through all the cds....

We moved the changing table into the closet. We really only use it for poopy changes, cause Travis hates it now. That opened up the room to move his dresser down, and put his toy bins along the wall. We hung up his stuffed animal hammock we've had for.... like a year. All his animals now live in the upper corner of his room. We assembled some cubes as a temporary solution until we get a proper bookshelf. I assembled his big tent he got from Grandma for Christmas. Four or five hours total of work, and we transformed it into a nice space for our little boy.

So, maybe the guilt from the morning ended up being a good thing. I wish I'd taken a "before" pic... but I didn't. Anyway... Here's what it looks like now. A played-in child's room! The real work is in is what you DON'T see... boxes, lame clutter... YAY!

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1 comment:

hollibobolli said...

I've done the same thing as far as being snappy when I'm tired.. I was exhausted and Faith kept kicking me and singing and it was after 11. I snapped and said "STOP" and rolled over.. and she said (in the saddest voice) "but mommy, I not doing anything.. I only want to be with you." I STILL feel like crap over that!! Mommy guilt sucks. If you can find my silver lining to make me feel better.. let me know. The only thing that helped was that when she was sleeping and I tried to kiss her - it hacked her off and she snapped at me. :)