Stormy Weather

We are in the middle of a hurricane.  Literally.

This evening, Hurricane Earl made its way up the coast and hit our little spit of sand.  So far, it hasn’t turned out to be as bad as initially projected; last I heard, they were about to downgrade it to a tropical storm.  But it’s windy and rainy all the same, and the island is ready for a catastrophe.  Downtown looks like it is waiting for an Armageddon or riots or something. 

But, eerie as it is to see Main Street covered in plywood, Nantucket life is still going on.

The Brotherhood was open today too, but it ran on a skeleton crew – without Chris.  One the exciting things that Earl brought was an unexpected day with Dada, which was great, because his regular day off this week really wasn’t so great, and we needed a day to make up for it.

We needed a great family day (which we got!), because there’s been a little bit of stormy weather in our household lately, not just outside.

To be honest the first few days of this week were not good, and Tuesday morning was downright awful.  We’ve been having some trouble with Nora sleeping though the night lately; she’s such a light sleeper, and it’s been one thing after another waking her up.  Of course, I am the only one who can get her to go back to sleep, so every time she wakes up I have to stop what I’m doing and go sit in her room for 20 minutes; if I’m already in bed or on my way there, then she comes to bed with me, but that’s not much better either, because she has turned into a giant bed hog.

Yes, between Nora and Dada, there’s not much space left for Mama.  And then there’s the fact that in bed, she nurses all. night. long.  So when she’s in bed with us, I wake up about every hour; gone are the blissful nights of co-sleeping with a newborn (never thought I would say that). Thus, this week: after three nights in a row of going to sleep after midnight, nursing her at night in our bed, and having to get up with her for the day at 5:30 or 6 in the morning because she was demanding to play, I was exhausted.  Thank goodness Chris was home Tuesday, because I had a giant meltdown.  And then I took a three hour nap and was much better.

But that really got me thinking about what my next housewife challenge should be.  And it has to do with patience and zen parenting.  Nora’s only just (not yet!) a year old and I already have these moments where I get so frustrated and just want to scream or cry or walk-away.  I know, you’re thinking how can this silly,

sweet,

funny,

and amazing girl

frustrate anyone?

I think it has to do with three things: first, expectations that I’ve built about how things will/should be; second, the challenge of being the primary caregiver 24/6-and-3/4; and third, the fact that growing up I didn’t have a lot of models of patient and zen parenting.

There are many things I’m still working out about motherhood.  Patience is one of the things around which I want to center my parenting style, and so I know that Housewife Challenge #5 is going to be: Practice the Art of Patience.

Right now, this centers around the bedtime routines (and it’s aftereffects), but in the short future I’m foreseeing that it will apply to food (more on that later), and and after that, there will be something else.  Because all kids test your patience at one-point or another, right?  I’m going to try to build immunity sooner rather than later so I’ll be prepared for the child and teen-aged sized testing.

For now, I have to reshape my expectations for what happens after 8:30 pm (usually my only free moments), so that I can be more relaxed if Nora wakes up.  Chris has agreed to take a more active role on his day off and in the mornings, so I can have some off time too – which will help me roll with the punches better at night.  And I’m going to start going to bed earlier to make mornings a little less brutal…well, that one I’m starting tomorrow.  Maybe.

—Thanks to my friend Kathleen for the downtown pictures!