great expectations

I don't know how I'm going to make this post flow well but I'm going to give it my best shot.  So stay with me and try to not get lost.

I'm going to briefly mention 2 things that pertain to my situation...infertility and post-partum depression...but they are only going to be said in passing because I want to devote a separate post to each one of them in the future so stay tuned if you want to be dragged down into those ditches.  I think that they have something to do with my current situation but for the time being, they are salt and pepper to the roast.

I've been able to spend more time at home with Anna the last 2 weeks.  I've been phasing out of my job and that's allowed me to be a stay at home mom for a little while.
The last time I was a stay at home mom, I had just given birth and was enjoying my maternity leave.  I've secretly always wanted to be a housewife.
When you have a baby, everyone and every book says "sleep when your baby sleeps!" I kind of thought that was bullshit.  My house is not immaculate but it is tidy and it didn't get tidy by sleeping all day.  I say when your baby sleeps, you should wash the dishes.
This disposition really helped me stay on top of things after Anna was born.  It was also incredibly easy to do because back then Anna didn't do a damn thing besides lay around and be cute.

Now we fast forward a year.  Anna is nearly 1 and besides being cute, she's figured out how to do all kinds of other amazing things like:

splashing her hands around in the toilet

emptying her lowest dresser drawer

take pictures off the wall

"reorganize" our dvd collection

eat anything left on the carpet

Oh yeah, and play with her own dirty diaper.

I had a very hard time getting pregnant.  It was hard on both of us but I am confident that I took it a bit harder.  I don't think boys want to be dads the way girls want to be moms.  So I had time...a lot of time...to create this picture in my head about how wonderful life was going to be when I had a baby.  For years I added to this expectation.  I was going to have a beautiful, natural birth and breastfeed with ease and grace.  I was going to keep my house looking neat and in place.  I was going to have dinner on the table at 5:30 for my husband and take a family jog each night.  I was going to have the enthusiasm for at least 2 hours of romance 3 night a week minimum and of course do my hair and make-up every single day.  

The cruel thing is that this almost seemed obtainable when I was home the first couple of weeks with Anna.  I wasn't having that hard of a time keeping up.

Which led me to an almost complete nervous breakdown yesterday

When Anna was about 6 months old, I was feeling not great and decided to talk to my doctor.  She said it sounded like I had post-partum and gave me some Zoloft that I quit taking 3 months later because I don't think I was really depressed anyway....I think having a baby really rocks your world and if you don't have days where you feel overwhelmed and shitty then you are a robot.  But anyway, I still have "days" and yesterday was one of them.

Sometimes I feel like a complete failure because I'm still trying to make that idea of parenthood work for me.  

It's not going so well.

7.5 times out of 10, this is what my living room looks like

  

 I don't know if my house will ever been clean again.

I let my baby chew on cat toys

Why? Because if she already has something in her mouth she's much less likely to eat the Cherrios that have been on the floor for at least a week.

We eat out more than we eat in because it's faster
We make it to the Y about twice a week
Remember that part in the first Sex in the City movie where Miranda and Steve are in the bedroom and she says "can't we get it over with?"  I mean really, was that that awful????

This is my life now.  I know that it won't always been this way but it is now and I strive to accept it and love it everyday.