Signs that I may be a bad mother (or at least will struggle a lot with my newborn).
Last night, would be a good example.
Mr. Random and I usually try to head to bed by 9:30 so we're IN bed by 9:45 and falling asleep by 10 or so...this is because we get up at 5:45 am...which comes DARN early! And I pretty much need sleep to function. Right, so last night, my younger sister, who we'll call Sister Pooh-head for this post, calls at 10:30. It was just the exact wrong time for whatever sleep cycle I was in. My phone is across the room charging...and ringing. And I have no idea how long it rang before it slowly roused me from sleep. But I was confused. I couldn't figure out what the noise was at first, but I hated it. It needed to stop. As I come up a little more from the depths of my coma sleep I realize it's my phone, but think I somehow set an alarm that was going off - I really thought it was sometime in the middle of morning...not a half an hour after falling asleep.
I get up drag myself across the floor toward the phone, and look at it - still quite groggy and a little confused. I see Sister Pooh-head across the front. I answer it, because it's very likely that if she was dying in a ditch, she'd be calling me at 3am, not 911. But I answer it, like this:
Banshee: "IS IT IMPORTANT!?" (cave-woman groan...) and hear nothing.
"Hello?......" Nothing.
"Is this important!????" I want to say, or can it wait...but that takes too much effort.
Sister Pooh-head (brightly, kind of like a valley girl): "oh, Hello!?"
B""Is it Important?!?...."
SPH:"oh.....did I wake you up? I'm sorry!"
B:"yeah...I don't know...I went to bed like...an hour ago...what time is it?!?"
SPH:"oh, okay, I'm sorry, go back to bed! I love you good night!"
B: mumbles..."yeah, k, love you too, bye..."
THEN. This is the part that sends warning bells. I get ANGRY. I notice the time and that it's only 10:30, which I guess is almost a reasonable time to call, but somehow that pisses me off more...so I climb back into bed and I'm wrestling with the damn top sheet that got twisted as I fell/drug myself out of bed to get the phone, and I'm trying to get comfortable and my pajama pants are twisted and all the while I'm cussing out my sister for being so damn inconsiderate and how she wants to come visit and drag her boyfriend we've never met with her and she calls at f***ing 10:30 on a THURSDAY night to tell me she wants to come the following weekend (my mom had told me she had this plan, but it was the first I'd heard of it) and rah, rah, rah. Angry.
Then, just as I get comfortable, I realize I have to pee. Back out of bed, more cursing, more anger, rah, rah rah.
Back in bed. Ah.....and asleep.
For about an hour...when I wake up to pee, AGAIN.
And then 2 more hours, when I wake up, yet again, to pee some more. What is this? It's like her call set me up for a night of failure! The most I've had to get up before is 2 times, and now we're just to 2 am and I've been up 3 times! Ughhh!
Which thankfully was the last time until the alarm went off at 5:45...and it felt like someone had hit me over the head with a stack of bricks while I'd been sleeping.
And I realized as the cats were begging for food and I was generally annoyed that when I'm tired, I have NO patience. NONE whatsoever. And I tend to get angry. Which bodes well for the tiny human I'm growing who will probably wake me far more than just 3 times a night for the first weeks months does it ever end? of it's life.
Good times. Things to be aware of for sure. Hopefully I'll find more patience between now and August. :) Or learn to just be tired and not angry...
It's not a matter of more patience, it's a matter of making sure you set up safe places to vent, that way you don't vent at your children and you still are able to cuss out the world if need be. We ALL have our really pissed off moments. :P Don't worry, you'll be a good mom. :)
ReplyDeleteI will not lie: the sleep deprivation is THE WORST part of new parenthood, in my opinion. The newborn stage kicked my butt for many reasons, but the underlying difficulty is that the lack of sleep makes any rational thought completely impossible. I can totally deal with my son's toddler behavior because he sleeps at night. (He started sleeping through the night at 14 months old... lucky me!)
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, that wasn't exactly a pep talk. But it's good you are prepared. In the meantime, buy a Miracle Blanket and read "Happiest Baby on the Block" and "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" now.