I did it. I made it through my first trial as a solo parent and we all survived swimmingly. No broken bones, no lost children, no burned down house. Success!
Ryan was out of town from Monday night through today, so I had the girls at home by myself. Fortunately we drove down to my mom’s house yesterday afternoon so I didn’t have to spend that entire time fully alone, but still a good chunk of it. And just like last week, I’m pretty damn proud of myself.
I was a little leery of having to do both bedtimes with no help all week since that is my absolute least favorite time of day, but it ended up being a piece of cake. Della has been having some bedtime issues and slept in my bed 2 of the nights, but after night 1 of being kicked in the back for 8 hours I learned to barricade her on Ryan’s side with blankets so I could get a little better sleep the second night. I figured that was just easier than trying to get her to stay in her own bed over and over and over and over and over until I died of exhaustion and frustration. Pick your battles, people.
I think Lana has been going through some 4 month sleep regression, too, so I was afraid that did not bode well for a week alone either. I had never heard of this until I read this post awhile ago, but it all sounds like what we’ve been dealing with with Lana – waking up crying shortly after going to bed when I know she’s not hungry or wet, no longer sleeping anywhere close to through the night, having maximum night sleep stretches of 3-4 hours tops, and starting to wake up 2 or more times a night again with the only solution being nursing her back to sleep. Ridiculous. I was starting to go zombie again until I figured out what was going on. We were completely spoiled with Della since she slept through the night by 3 months of age and really had no consistent troubles that I can remember after that, but like I’ve said before, #2 here is just totally different.
That post I link to above by Brandy is an excellent reference for this, though. She has a number of links in there to other explanations of it, so I’m not going to bother repeating them here. But if you have a 4ish month old babe and are starting to go crazy with him/her suddenly breaking their new found sleeping abilities, read it. Fortunately I remembered it from when I read it the first time so I wasn’t totally shocked when Lana started doing this, but that still didn’t make the 12:00, 2:00, and 5:00 wake ups any easier. When she was a newborn, sure, those were expected. But at almost 5 months? No way, jack.
And unfortunately Monday night of this week was quite possibly the worst night she’s ever had in her almost 5 months on the outside. I shit you not. She woke up at 10:30 and I arm bounced her back to sleep; she woke again at 11:30 and refused to go back to sleep so I finally fed her again to quiet the screaming and put her back in her crib between 12:30-1; she started crying again but I was fed up with the antics and just let her test her lungs that time because I knew she just needed sleep, and fortunately she finally quieted herself after a few minutes; but then she woke again at 5:05 to eat before going back to sleep for a couple hours until her wake up for the day. I didn’t have to work on Tuesday so was hoping to sleep in a little after that night at the freak show, but Della got up at 7:30. Boo. No rest for the weary.
I worked Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week, so we’ll throw that into the mix of being on my own too. Actually, I guess that gave me a little break from them for those shifts, so that worked out ok. Plus getting the 3 of us ready in the mornings and to work on time is becoming much easier, so that part really wasn’t so bad. It was just knowing there was going to be no one at home later in the day to play with them that had me a little worried, but those worries turned out to be completely unfounded. I recorded the movie “Tangled” a few months ago, so Della and I watched that at night before bed and she loved it.
There were a couple wrenches in the week, however, because why wouldn’t there be? Murphy’s Law dictates that nothing in our household may run smoothly, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Our recycling bin got frozen to the ground in a glacier of ice during the thaw and refreeze last week, which I never even gave thought to until I tried to wheel it out to the curb Tuesday night and realized it was not going anywhere. I tried pouring hot water around it and whacking at the ice with a shovel, and I even tried melting the ice around the bottom with a blow torch, but that sucker wasn’t budging. Well yes, we have a blow torch, doesn’t everyone? I was just proud of myself for figuring out how to use it without burning my hands or having it blow up in my face. And no, I didn’t melt any of the recycling bin plastic, either.
Fortunately we have amazing neighbors who filled up bins of their own with our recycling so I could at least empty some of it and who came over with ice melter and spent over an hour melting and shoveling the thing out, as well as wheeling it out to the curb for me as I put the girls down for naps. We seriously live on the best block ever. So, per the recycling truck driver’s instructions, I just called the village once it was out and the truck came back the next day and picked it up right before we left for my mom’s house. Excellent.
We are now at the mecca that is “Bapa’s house!”, as Della would say, so thankfully my single parent status has come to an end. But it’s funny – all week I have been comparing how I fared now to how I fared the very first week I was home alone with these 2 after Ryan went back to work and my mom left after the week she spent with us after Lana’s birth, and it’s like night and day.
Week 1 I was still so new to this 2 kid game that I honestly had no idea how we were going to survive. Multiple naps, multiple meals for each, maybe a bathroom break for me, trying to keep the house in some semblance of order, and feeling that total fog of new parenthood again. It was so hard. I kept everything on an even keel, but that first week alone scared the living shit out of me.
Week 20 was the week of “I got this”. Sure there were some things that had me slightly worried, as I said above, but in general I went into it thinking why bother fretting, I have to do this. I almost saw it as a challenge that I wanted to blow out of the water instead of a chore. And I did. There were no meltdowns, I didn’t lose my temper with anyone, I got the house cleaned and laundry done, and we all had fun together, just Mama and her girls. Quite a different mindset from the beginning.
But am I happy to have helping hands again now? Oh hell yes.
week 1
week 20