SAHM Burnout: Not sure if my own mother “gets it” December 16, 2010

My 5yo, Adam, really likes to do arts and crafts. I can see that he has a knack for these things, and I love that about him, really I do.

Enter the 2yo brother, Mark. This is where things get interesting, and tricky. Mark will get into (read: grab, throw, ruin) practically anything he can get his hands on. This means that Adam has almost no choice but to do art projects in his room, with the gate up to keep Adam out.

At that point, if he needs help with something, I have to step over the gate into his room, leaving Mark to his own devices in the rest of the house. If I’m lucky, nothing disastrous will happen in those 1-2 minutes. If I’m not lucky — well — let’s just say I’ve come into the living room to find $700 worth of camera being dragged around like a pull-toy — and NOT because I’ve neglected to safeguard my valuables. There is only so much you can do when your toddler likes to push chairs around the house so he can climb up and get things from high places.

Another dilemma occurs during those precious few hours when Mark is napping. That is the perfect time to do arts and crafts with Adam, right? Well….not always. Many days, by the time Mark goes down for a nap, I am either exhausted, cranky, or ridiculously behind on house work (or any combination of those things).

This is a dilemma that I very often face, but I am wary of trying to explain this to my own mother. At times, especially when a holiday is coming up, she likes to send “craft kits” to Adam. While I appreciate this very, very much, I also know – the moment she brings up the topic – that I will soon find myself in the naptime dilemma once again.

Even though she raised three kids of her own, often I don’t feel comfortable sharing my exhaustion or even my logistical dilemmas with her.  I don’t want to sound like I’m just whining or complaining, or like I just “can’t handle” being a mom. I don’t want it to sound like I don’t want her to send craft kits to Adam. But in the past, when I have put myself out on a limb and have shared things with her, it has often not gone as I wished it to go. As a result, I keep a lot of my struggles and feelings of burn-out to myself.

How about you? Does your mom “get” your exhaustion, frustration, and burn-out? Or do you try to keep it under wraps?

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Second night with bedwetting alarm December 9, 2010

My son, Adam, is five years old. He has consistently wet the bed for about two years now. When he was younger, under three years old I would guess, and we put him to bed with no diaper, he seemed to have dry nights at least half of the time, though I must admit that my memory is a little foggy on this.

Now that he’s five years old (almost 5 1/2), wetting the bed occurs practically every night, multiple times per night. It is soooooo frustrating. Yes, we limit liquids in the afternoon/evening, but it seems to make little, if any, difference. Yes, we have tried waking him up to go potty — this sometimes cuts back on laundry, but it hasn’t – that we can see – made any difference in the actual bedwetting problem.

When Adam was about 4 1/2 years old, we used a bedwetting alarm that we borrowed from a friend for a few months. It was slow, slow going, and any progress that we made was negated by the fact that the battery on the sensor unit eventually died (without us realizing that was the case).

Fast forward to the present, with Adam being 5 1/2 years old and wetting the bed nightly. We recently choked up the $60 to buy a new sensor for the alarm, and we are back in the trenches with using the alarm every night.

Last night (night # 2), the alarm sounded three separate times. Once at 11 p.m., once at 1:30 a.m., and once at 6:30 a.m. It boggles my mind — this means that without the alarm, and without Mom or Dad coming in to wake him up at predetermined times, Adam would have outright wet the bed THREE separate times last night. And knowing what I know about my son, he is not likely to have woken up and finished urinating in the toilet. Oh no, not Adam. These would have been full releases into his bedding while he was sound asleep.

Showering … during the day! December 2, 2010

With my younger son being two years old and often getting into mischief, it has been a long time since I felt I could take a shower any time other than when Mark was napping, in bed for the night, or being watched by someone else. Of course, this is a difficult set-up because my only time to shower seemed to be during my precious free time.

However, we might – just might – be moving out of this stage.

This morning I really wanted (needed!) to shower, and since Mark and Adam, age 5, were playing together, I decided to give it a go. Overall it went well, with Mark getting into trouble only as I was upstairs getting dressed.

Here’s to life getting a little easier around here.