Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Bedtime Disaster

Okay, tonight was the second attempt at having the two boys all by myself right at bedtime.

Last week Anna left the house at 7, and from 7-8 I was cruising.
Life was good, I had this under control...no problem.
I had Anders in bed, and was telling him a story, simultaneously I was holding a sleeping baby.
Jakob woke up at 8pm.
Crying.
Anders was not asleep.
I left Anders room to try to get Jakob settled, but I had no luck.
Jakob was beside himself.
Anders switched on the light, got out of bed, and started crying himself.
I had 2 screaming kids.
Anders moved to the gate at the top of the stairs to wail and kick it with his feet while crying for Anna.
Jakob was wailing too.
I had no milk for Jakob b/c Anna hadn't started pumping yet.
After 30 minutes of crying I put in a Winnie the Pooh video for Anders.

Jakob cried until 9:10 when Anna came home.
I cried until 10.


So, it felt like a majordisaster. My nerves were shot, I was wiped out after a long day, and simply put, baby crying really stresses me out.

You'd think I'd have learned.

Tonight. Round two.

Anna left at 7. I had a bottle.
Jakob slept until 8 and then right at the moment Anders really should be falling asleep, Jakob woke up crying for milk. But I had some this time. I still had to leave Anders room, go down, heat it, come back up, but by this time both boys were crying all over again.

Needless to say it really didn't get any better. Anna came home at 9.
My patience was gone, my fatigue was amplified, my good humor was erased.
I was not pleasant or a good partner when Anna came home.

I am not doing this again at bedtime.
At this point I consider myself a lousy parent of two kids when I am the only one attending to them, and it's bedtime, and I am not the nursing mother. I feel like a total failure.

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