grrrr

[flea]

So I've been struggling with myself lately, as an employee, a parent, a partner, and a person.

Everything is annoying me. My daughter's inability/unwillingness to sleep through the night is driving me bananas, not from lack of sleep but because it is making me angry at her. A resentful and annoyed parent is not a good, patient, loving parent. Mr. flea's normally mildly annoying yet charming schtick of being late for everything and slackerly is driving me craxy (napped and was an hour late to pick up the baby last Thursday, 25 minutes late coming home yesterday, 38 minutes late dropping off the baby this morning). His inability/unwillingness to work from home (we have the technology, it is a question of him), coupled with the fact that he is the slowest walking man this side of Shane/name your gunslinger, means he spends 1 hour and 40 minutes a day commuting, time he could be spending working or with the family. I am slacking off at work because I am bored, bored, bored, feel trapped in this job because (in theory) we only have one more year living here, and there's no point switching jobs now, especially when I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I am annoyed with myself for falling into the slacking/listlessness trap that attacks underemployed workers everywhere.

I am annoyed with myself for being impatient, quick to anger, and for being annoyed with myself! Grrr.

I think we're going to night wean the baby Wednesday night and following.

Comments

[burrell.livejournal.com]

Franny has been more demanding at night than usual. I'm not sure how much is cold-related, how much is developmental, and how much is her unconscious reaction to the new baby. But while she used to wake and night and then go back to sleep on her own, she now wants to come into the bed with us and snuggle. So hey, I feel your pain.

[hecubot.livejournal.com]

I well remember the deep resentment and impatience I felt during Emmett's no-sleeping years. Not only one of the hardest parts of baby-parenting I had to endure, but also a period that I look back on with some contrition. I wasn't at my best.

I do remember the moment when I turned it around. I was up for the probably the third time that night, 3am or later, in the rocking chair with him. And I'd been so grumpy about getting up - for months. And this was after many months of getting used to it. I was just sitting there in the chair, hating it all, and I realized I had my eyes closed. I was being gentle, and rocking him, but I wasn't looking at him. And I forced myself to look at him. And I realized I had been treating him as a problem, instead of a person.

The tricky thing about epiphanies is that I can't just hand that one over to you and have it mean anything.

But what it meant to me was to change my focus from the situation and trying to bring my focus back to him as a person. I needed to pay very close attention to him as if I were learning him over from scratch. You get into a lot of habits as a parent, and when they're little they outgrow your habits so quickly. At least for myself, it always helped to re-learn Emmett. To not presume anything about him.

Wish I could help you on the work issue. When you figure it out, I'll be awaiting your advice.