(no subject)

[liralen]

Burnt out. Toast. Crunchy. Crinkly. Mind-numbed.

I'm burnt out. So quickly. After three months completely off from work, and just two intense weeks, I'm now a crispy critter that doesn't even want to look at work anymore. It's just making me grumpy. Well, it's Friday. I may well be entitled.

It's just all the two, three, or four hours of meetings a day plus Boss Bill expecting more stuff out of me, and then having to deal with a Jet who's grumpy because he's not getting the kind of attention he's used to getting, and he's with John, right now and just screaming. John doesn't seem to be able to get him to stop and it's fucking 99.7 degrees outside.

crunch crunch crunch

There are moments when I envy Trip his chitinous existence.

Comments

*hugs*

[flit.livejournal.com]

I hope things go better; you have a lot to juggle!

It's also a lot harder to deal with pressure when it's hot out. Maybe at least it'll cool down soon....

Re: *hugs*

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Thanks. that was much needed.

Colorado is edging into fall. Slowly, but surely, and the days are definitely getting shorter. I think that staying at home, I'm more aware of the season and the weather and the length, now, of the days...

But, yes. The heat really eats me alive. I don't like it, and it doesn't like me, and it's even worse with Jet and John of the broken thermostat. Jet knows he doesn't like it and says so, frequently. I am pretty sure that babies cry and yell and fuss simply because they don't know that they 'shouldn't' bother others with their discomfort, and do it at times when I really wish I could do what he's doing. I think that letting him is a good thing in that it'll keep him conscious of being unhappy, but when I'm unhappy, too, it's hard to bear, sometimes.

It didn't help that Jet hasn't been sleeping all that well. Over the weekend he was up, often, four or five times a night. Monday and last night he was only up two or three, which is quite the improvement. So that's helped, too. And knowing that I didn't want to juggle anymore, I took today off when Joan couldn't take Jet. That was *very* much a smart thing to do, one less thing to juggle. Whew.

Re: *hugs*

[flit.livejournal.com]

I notice day length a lot more, too, now, and that's actually one of the pluses for me.

I'm glad to hear that juggling less is helping, and hm, maybe driving around with him will help getting him sleepy? My metaboss said he did a lot of driving around and answering email at night when his new daughter couldn't sleep. At least the nights are cool (I hope!)

The world must be such an overwhelming and _new_ place to a baby that sometimes crying must seem like the only thing possible. Even new experiences are tempered for us, since we know what it feels like to have gone through thousands of new things. Not so for babies. From Jet's perspective, sometimes he cries and the uncomfortable thing gets fixed, and sometimes he cries and it doesn't. Life must be very confusing, but luckily he has parents. And I'm sure it's a comfort to him to have you there, even if you can't fix things like the heat.

Hmm, is it possible to have his grandparents out more? Or are they really busy? That might help _you_ to bear all the newness you're going through.

My mother says that once when I was very young I was just screaming crying for absolutely no reason she could deduce. For *hours*. It wasn't a diaper; I didn't seem to be in pain; I was just screaming. She finally put me down in the center of the room and just *stared* at me in astonishment. Then she called the pediatrician; I was her second baby and she just hadn't had any issues like that with my sister, and she was at a loss. They never did figure out what was up with that. For all I know, I liked the sound. Hopefully Jet will never do this to you. :)

Re: *hugs*

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Mmm... yeah, I like your view from his perspective.

As for grandparents... with my parents, it's actually more of a stress rather than less. They really do try to help, but there's a riptide of interesting emotional stuff whenever they're in the house. They're actually here this week, and now that Jet's not so much a newborn as he was and unable to really express himself, Jet's responded to them by being very cautious around them, and very uncertain when they have him to themselves. It doesn't help when they blame him being fussy on just seeing me when he actually had a very wet and dirty diaper. Mom, especially, has some major problems with deciding things are a certain way without checking with me or with Jet.

Like Mom's decided that the reason Jet wakes up at night is because I'm breastfeeding him and if I'd only listen to reason and feed him formula on a strict schedule, he'd sleep just fine.

Can you just see me hiding under the bed and wanting to scream a little?

John's Mom and Dad are coming in a few weeks, and I think that might be a very useful thing. We'd at least get caught up on sleep. And my Mom and Dad aren't actively dangerous for Jet at all, so we can get caught up on sleep, some, at least.

On the most part Jet goes to sleep just fine. He's actually pretty quick about it at night, there isn't a protracted period of fussiness or unhappiness. When he's fed and full, he goes to sleep and sleeps like a brick if he's not too cold or not too hot, or thirsty, and will get up maybe once or twice during the night if he's comfortable and his nose isn't stuffed or something else is going on. All the things that keep even adults awake at night, the thing is that he can't do anything to fix them for himself, so it's up to us, really. So he's not really 'not sleeping', and we're way, way, way luckier than the couple that has a baby that wakes up every forty five minutes, on the dot, all night long. Or the two other couples that have colicky babies that scream until midnight and then fall asleep...

Wow, about your mom and you. It says in the pediatrics book that sometimes some babies just have to cry. There were a couple times when Jet was in the midst of a growth spurt and we basically did what you mom did, i.e. took care of everything we could take care of, and then all we could do was just let him cry. The pediatrics book said that some babies just have to cry some energy off before they can relax, sometimes. It's just a natural way of letting that stuff off and getting it out. But the trick is taking care of everything you can, first, and then letting them cry, without guilt. Jet hates being held for that, too, he'll actually arch and kick and thrash, but if he got some time on the floor to just go at it, he'd cry it off and be much happier much sooner.

I guess parenthood is a great way of teaching one that sometimes there just isn't anything to be done.

Re: *hugs*

[flit.livejournal.com]

I can definitely see wanting to hide, yah. :(

Though it's interesting that Jet is reacting; wow, babies are more perceptive than I'd thought about emotional undercurrents. Or he's very smart.

This is probably _not_ the time to be having this kind of talk, but I used to be horribly worried about what my mom thought about me, and whether or not she'd disapprove of my actions. I couldn't actually imagine failure as an option, since success seemed so important to her (more so than to me, many times).

What really helped was just describing the way I felt to her; I told her I knew she loved me, but that I often worried that she'd be disappointed in my failures, shortcomings, and differences; I'd worry to the point that the worry itself would hurt me. That I felt like I was being graded, sort of. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was a very healing conversation, and I no longer feel like she'll suddenly cut me to the quick, as people who know you that well are so easily capable of.

I've been able to talk to her about what's happening right now without feeling shame, and I don't think I would have been able to do that five or ten years ago.

Re: *hugs*

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Wow... that's cool about you and your mom. Neat that the communication did work so well, and having that in mind helped me some these last few days. One of the things I have managed to communicate to them is that negative feedback was something that really hurt, and the last few days, when I really looked at it, I could see that they were trying their best to be really positive and to say positive things when they were aware of what they were doing.

So that was really good. It took a few instances of trying to tell them that different ways, but when I actually get something out coherently, I can see some differences.

That's pretty cool.

hugs and thanks,
Liralen