Lately, I have been guilty of wishing the hours and minutes in my day would go by faster. I do admit it, I have been so guilty, too guilty, of wanting the week days to blend into each other, to just collide into each other into one moment in time, so that the evenings and weekend can come more quickly.
I've been stuck in this I-hate-weekday-afternoons mentality for the last three months or so, and it's a really poisonous state of mind to be in. Being like this makes me irritable, easily angered by the slightest things, and even disinterested in what I actually spend my day doing.
Realising that I dreaded weekdays with a vengeance has led me to think really hard about why and what I can do to change my attitude. After all, I have much to be thankful for and much to look forward to. I still live with my in-laws so it's not that I don't have an extra pair of eyes to mind G when I need to do something urgent. I get to spend my day caring for and being in the company of my precious, happy baby, instead of being stuck in the office rushing to get work done so that I can come home on time to be with him.
I've read one-too-many articles about how fleeting babyhood really is, about how before I've realised it, my baby will be a big boy who doesn't need his mommy as much, about how short this period of time really is in the greater scheme of things, about how moms struggle to find a balance between their work and their babies because they know how transient this phase of babyhood truly is.
And I know it's true. My baby is already a toddler. He's no longer an infant who's content to be carried and who only wants to see the world from the safety of his momma's arms. Now, he keeps wanting to run off and explore things by himself, he has his own agenda when we go out and he's very vocal about expressing his disinterest in my planned activities for the afternoon if it doesn't interest him. He knows how to communicate his wants in an effective manner, which will only get more effective as he learns the language to verbalise more of his desires.
So anyway, I'm blogging this post to get all this verbalised as I sort out my thoughts and priorities.
Much of my dislike for the afternoon stems from my own lousy physical state at the time of the day. Ever since I found out that Baby #2 is on the way and the pregnancy progressed at top speed (read: the symptoms all came upon me in an avalanche and left me feeling constantly nauseated, fatigued, bloated, and with a nagging headache - all at about week 6) - I've been struggling to really be in the moment as I play with and care for G. My lack of appetite has also wrecked my desire to cook and this has also affected G's meals, although I've really tried to keep his meals varied and tasty. Also, me not wanting to eat has exacerbated all my pregnancy symptoms and I'm in a floaty, exhausted and disengaged head space throughout the day.
Most of the time, I'm just counting down the minutes until Papa returns home from work at between 5.30pm - 6.00pm each evening.
So to sum it all up, I've been feeling like a pretty darn horrible mom ever since I've started struggling to cope with pregnancy symptoms from carrying Baby #2.
I need to decide to look at time spent at home with G in a different light - instead of looking at playing with G as something I do when I am done with all the household chores and my own work (yes I do actually work; bills do need to get paid after all!), I need to think of spending time with G as my main priority each day. Everything else can wait. When I'm trying to hang up the laundry and he is yelling "MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!" at the top of his lungs and tugging at my legs, whining for me to pick him up, I need to drop the wet laundry for a moment and pick him up so he can see what I'm doing. I know he wants to help me around the house now, so I need to learn to let him "help" me while I still get some stuff done.
And, I really need to eat lots more. I've noticed that on days where I eat a lot in the morning, it has a positive snowball effect to the afternoon and evening. I'm less headachey, nauseous and bloated, generally. BUT. This means I need to eat every hour or so, and what I eat has to be very small snack-sized bites, not full meals.
Whatever works to keep me on my feet and smiling by the end of the day, I suppose.
