Sometimes I complain about motherhood and every time I do, somebody somewhere somehow gives me the same speech…
- Enjoy it before it’s over.
- Live in the now.
- It’s all worth it.
- EMBRACE IT.
Believe me, I know all these things… I am just so damn tired.
I am 36 weeks pregnant in the heat of summer, I have a toddler that still does not always sleep through the night and up until last week I had a full time job …I am just so tired.
You lose a lot of things when you have kids, including your mind. (Yes, I know, you gain a lot too – like a new perspective and a bigger heart and tons cuts on your feet from stepping on LEGO pieces), but becoming a parent forces you to shed much of your old lifestyle to accommodate your new one. I used to sleep so much… I loved sleep… I could easily sleep till 1 pm in the afternoon if I wanted to. One of my favourite things when I used to go visit my parents was sleeping on the couch while my dad watched cricket, oh how I miss those beautiful sweet dreaming moments. Even just the ability to have a nap whenever you felt like it… do people even still do that?
One of the earliest pieces of advice I got when I was pregnant the first time around was to catch up on sleep before Mikayla was born. It’s both incredibly good advice and terribly stupid advice. Stupid because there’s no way to “catch-up” on sleep before you lose it – you can’t bank sleep. And good because once you have a kid, as in DAY ONE, the amount of sleep you’ll get for the rest of your life begins to diminish and never stops.
I’ve had a wonderful pregnancy so far. but I got a tummy bug about two/three weeks ago and it feels like my body just can’t recover. I am just so tired. I’m uncomfortable, I need to wake up at night to switch sides, and it’s hot… I can’t stop making lists in my head (did I get everything for the baby, is everything in the hospital bag, what’s on the menu for Christmas dinner, what am I going to do for Mikyala’s birthday party,did I skip anyone when I bought presents, etc.)
Green Pepper the cat stopped sleeping on the bed with me because she is not nocturnal and needs some rest. Rhino (the male cat) gave up a long time ago and hates me because he can’t fit on my tummy anymore. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night without getting up, I’m pretty sure it was about four years ago… I am just so tired. I wish I was a cat.
The thought of talking to anybody and making conversation is overwhelming and my brain has died. Even blogging, my go-to therapeutic relief, has been tough. I haven’t had the time to read anything, and usually through reading, I am inspired to write.
There’s a time each day when I think I might actually die from exhaustion, but then, like a beam of hope and light and truth, comes the Aero or Tex chocolate bar I hid in the back of the cupboard and I know I’ll make it through one more day… then I also remember that I will never lose the extra 20 kg’s I’ve got attached to my ass if I keep eating chocolates every day, but then I stop caring and I do it anyway because survival.
As amazing as my husband is, no matter how many times he gets up for Mikayla at night – he can’t possibly understand. I bet some dads, my husband included, think they’ve been there. And I’m probably about to lose my whole 5% of male readers – but dads haven’t really been there. Not like us, not really. And the really crappy part about not getting enough sleep?
It makes us feel fat.
And cranky.
And emotional.
All of this leads us to feeling like we aren’t able to be good moms because we feel FAT and CRANKY and EMOTIONAL – and that’s not us. We are fabulous and amazing. What is this sorcery?
Most people would just tell you to take a nap and sleep when the kids are sleeping and blah blah blah. We’ve all heard that before. First off, Mikayla does not nap, ever. If she does…. Hell hath no fury. It’s better to keep her awake until bedtime – for everyone’s safety and sanity. Secondly, since she was born, I have lost my ability to nap, I just can’t do it. I’d much rather watch series that I can’t watch with kids around or that my hubby can’t stand, or blog because I can finally hear my own thoughts, or try finish the book I started reading almost three years ago or maybe fold some laundry, or just chat on the phone without sounding like a crazy and being interrupted the whole time.. Or maybe plot my revenge towards Cole who always complains about how tired he is – even though I wake up at night from his snoring. I hate it when he sleeps.
I am trying to hold on to the thought that all things shall pass… but then again – you might get a week here or a week there – but pretty soon someone will get sick, or develop a fear of the dark, or start having nightmares. After that they’ll be teenagers, and you can’t sleep until they get home because you were a little shit when you were that age and you know what they might be up to. After that they will be in college and who even knows what kind of terrible things could be happening to them all night long. After that comes menopause, and I hear that you never sleep again anyway. When you get very old you have to wake up before sunrise, I am not sure why…
I know I did this to myself, I wouldn’t have it any other way, but right now… I am just so tired. So hey, you… person judging me and telling me to embrace it…I AM EMBRACING MOTHERHOOD, just not at this very moment. Is that okay? I love being a mommy, just not at this exact second. Is that a problem? Aren’t all jobs annoying at some point? Don’t all jobs have some aspects that suck? I mean if I were a cleaner and I hated scrubbing toilets, would you be like “Enjoy it. Embrace it. Time flies. Someday you’ll be too old to scrub the toilets.” No. Of course not. That’s just silly.
Now please, for the love of all things holy, stop telling me to embrace the moment. I’m embracing what I can, as best as I can, along with every other mother I know.
And besides, I embraced the f*/@king moment yesterday.
My tips for tired moms…
- Just try to accept the fact that you might be tired forever. It won’t always be the bone-tired that you are when you have a newborn or little kids, I’m thinking mildly tired.
- Exercise helps.
- A good haircut helps.
- Caffeine helps.
- Chocolate helps.
- Laughing helps too.
- Oh – and not being pregnant also helps. That actually helps a lot – mostly because you can do all the above mentioned without peeing yourself, harming your fetus or being in pain.
- Pinterest does not help, it will just make you feel like a bad mom.
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I can relate to EVERYTHING you said in this article. I am 33 weeks preggers with my 2nd and my first is turning 2 in 2 weeks. I am SOOO TIRED all of the time, and our amazing miracle of a little boy growing in my belly is kicking & head-butting so damn hard that I wake up at all hours, literally in pain. My hips & pelvic bones feel like they are going to shatter when I get up in the morning and I am pretty sure he does a daily rendition of Lord of the Dance on my bladder. These little buggers that we sacrifice so much for – I can’t imagine my life without them 🙂 I suppose we will sleep when we are dead.