So this past weekend, Alexander and I were on our own for the entire weekend while Chris went cross country to Phoenix. It started off with a bang with Alexander puking on me as soon as Chris walked out the door. He wouldn't nap all day and then puked on me again later in the day. Let's just say I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, but things were getting better. I was starting our nightly routine with bath time. Bath time is much trickier when Chris isn't home. Alexander is just so little and slippery, it always makes me nervous. Well, I was washing his hair with Head and Shoulders because of his cradle cap and a little soapy water must have slid into his eye and mouth. Well, as you can imagine he flipped out! He started screaming like crazy. My blood pressure sky rocketed and my adrenaline started pumping big time. (I realize to most people out there, you're thinking "why would you get so upset about shampoo? " but I got freaked out.) His eye was bright red and he was bubbling at the mouth and he was acting like he was choking. I washed his mouth out but still ended up calling poison control and had to get in the shower with him to let the water wash his eye out. This helped his eye a lot and by the time we got out of the shower it was mostly cleared up. And he was definitely calm. I was still shaking, but he was just fine. He went to bed and slept well. I however tossed and turned worrying about him all night. It's just so hard to handle things like this on your own and not have someone to ask if he looks okay.
Saturday was alright. He wouldn't really nap in his crib, but I needed a nap so badly that I let him sleep on me for a little bit. Of course I can't really sleep well with him, but it helped a little. We were going to go meet some girlfriends for dinner and then my car wouldn't start. Of course my car only has problems when Chris goes out of town! No kidding. It's a definite trend. This was the only car at home, so after fiddling with it with my dad on the phone and I still couldn't get it started a friend picked me up and we picked up our other car. Worked out okay in the end.
Now some of you are probably thinking that none of this sounds like a big deal, but when you are running on empty with sleep, everything seems like a big deal. And of course I am always super emotional when I am tired. I am always very happy to have Chris come home, but this time he couldn't get here fast enough! I cannot imagine ever being a single mom. I do NOT look forward to the next time that he deploys. Luckily it will be a while before we have to worry about that.
It's funny you know, a couple weeks ago I actually said to Chris, "I think I have this figured out." YEAH RIGHT!!! As soon as I feel like we have something working, Alexander changes something up to keep me on my toes. Right now it's sleep. He just doesn't like to nap in his crib anymore and the last couple of nights, it's been tough to get him to go to sleep at night. We used to never have any problem with this. I have ended up going in and nursing him some more to get him to go to sleep. This sort of defeats the point of our current routine which is designed for him to NOT fall asleep nursing. Maybe he's not eating enough to begin with. Tomorrow, I'm going to make sure he eats plenty before putting him down. We'll see.
As stressful and difficult as it is to be a mom, I still love it and wouldn't want to be doing anything else. I've been on "the job" for only 9 weeks, but it is definitely the MOST difficult job I have ever had and I can tell that it probably always will be. But it is also the MOST fulfilling job ever!
