Ex.haus.ted

When I accepted my per diem position at the hospital it was with the understanding that I didn't want to work more than 10 hours/week max. I didn't want it to take away from the time I have to nurture, teach, and learn from my babies. In the past 2 weeks I've worked 34.5 hours. Yes, if you divide that by 2 it's definitely more than 10. And it's amazing how much of an impact it has made on me. A coworker was out of town for a month so we all took a few of her shifts but it has definitely taken its toll. I work until 11 pm, come home, get to sleep by midnight, and the past 2 nights have been awoken at 2:22 am with reports of wet sheets and pajamas. So after changing the sheets, cleaning up my big boy, and re-tucking him in, I go back to bed, only to lie there for close to an hour as I try to get back to sleep. 6:45 am the day starts all over again. On top of that there have been big changes happening here with our landlord getting ready to sell our house, us trying to decide what to do, etc...

I've never been a night person. Even in college I was the one that would go to bed early, mid-party or not. I love sleep. I think I always have. And up until now I've never had a problem getting to sleep nor falling back asleep. So the 5-ish hours of sleep I've been getting a night have been slowly but surely wearing me down. All to come to their peak this evening. After a very long day, the boys and I came home at 7:15 (usually their bedtime) and they were instructed to take their clothes off, put pajamas on, etc... After a few tantrums, some whining, and some arguing, I gave the ultimatum that if they couldn't cooperate, they wouldn't get any books. Some more orneriness followed so they were both put to bed without books; Boozle was sobbing and Lincoln singing and talking to himself. I felt so bad that all the stress and exhaustion had led to me depriving us all of our best time of day. It's the time we snuggle together and read books and where I am most grateful to be a mama. I went back upstairs to his room about 3 minutes later to apologize that I was so stressed out and that we couldn't read books because he didn't obey, but we still could snuggle for a bit and he was already asleep. Apparently boozle was also exhausted.

When I have days like this, I always look back and realize I didn't go running today nor did I take any time to breathe deeply. For me, these two things make it possible to be a patient mama. And when it doesn't happen, I feel terrible. Instead, tonight I'll go to bed early, wake up early and go for a run, and pray for two sweet little forgiving boys to greet me in the morning.