Oh my, oh my, oh my

Well, let’s just say the rubber has hit the road.  And my car has hit the rubber, went swirling out of control and into a ditch.  If you saw my tweet last night: (”So. Discouraged.  Also, tired”) you may be wondering what on earth is going on with me.

So many things really…

I haven’t blogged in 3+ days.  I am busy, busy, busy.  Maybe not a big deal to you, but to me, I’m just annoyed.  I have a long list of cool content I want to post, but I can’t get around to it and when I have time I feel the need to explain to you why I’ve been a bit down in the dumps.

I’d like to blog, every day if I could.  Oh my.

Dave & I are trying to figure out our various InterVarsity trips for this semester.  I.E. Who is gone on what dates, who takes which kid, who is doing the pre-school routine, etc.  All of that = BIG headaches.  Sometimes, tears.  Ay ay ay.

I’d like to do all my trips and keep on top of everything in such a way my husband said daily, “my wife can do it all!”  Oh my.

For work, I’m planning a conference for African-American University & college students in our region.  It’s Feb. 19-20, and I’m up to my ears in planning and to-do lists.  It’s exciting on the one hand, on the other, just plain old stressful.

I want this conference to be great!  Oh my.

There are a few other things, on a personal front, that Dave & I are trying to figure out, in which of course, we see so drastically different.  Couldn’t marriage just come with a handbook?  For crying out loud.  Literally.

Marriage.  Oh my.

Rhys.  Rhys.  Rhys.  My little 3.5 month old, Rhys.  Where to even begin?  If you remember last week (or so) I got fed up with his cat naps, co-sleeping and ideal world of my nursing him all night.  Not just that, but I need to be able to leave him at night and have him be able to self-soothe himself back to sleep.

I spent 4-5 days in constant stress, anxiety and sleepless-ness trying to change some of these habits.  In addition to that, my wonderful day care provider was helping me by teaching him to cry-it-out for nap times and helping to wean him from his pacifier.

We’ve all been working so hard and enduring his tears and steep learning curve.  And then guess what happened?

He makes good progress, and after 1 really bad sleeplessness night, I threw it all away.  I threw all his progress out of the window by giving him the pacifier back to self soothe and then the next night I went back to co-sleeping and feeding him all night.

I feel like a horrible, terrible mother.  A horrible, terrible human being.  I just feel awful.  I mean, what kind of person takes a baby through all of those changes only to go back on it, and then re-introduce all those changes again?

So, we are literally back at square one and as a result of my sheer stupidity and inability to stick to the plan, Rhys & I have had two horrible nights of sleep, I am exhausted, perpetually sleepy, unable to handle my emotions, beating myself up and in all around bad shape.  I just want to cry.

And then cry some more.

Poor Rhys.  He doesn’t know which way is up, when I’m going to feed him, when he’s supposed to sleep.  I just think it’s unfair to him and I couldn’t feel any worse as a mother.   Oh my, oh, oh my.  My heart is very heavy over Rhys.  I wish I knew what to do.  (I.E.  co-sleeping/night feedings can’t be an option –too many overnights coming up– 11 nights in Feb. alone!  Is it okay to allow him to cat nap all day and skip trying to achieve 3 long naps?  The pacifier causes both of us to sleep horribly, but another night of trying to wean him off it, means I don’t sleep.  Again.).

OH MY!

Is there good news in here anywhere?

Yes!  Great news actually.

If youv’e been following my blog for awhile now you know that last year I spoke about taking a giant pay-cut.  For review, we work for a non-profit.  Economy tanked, donations tanked, our salary, well, tanked.  While it was a rough year for us financially, we had every need provided.  It was so obvious how God was looking out for us.

Fast forward to today.  Thanks be to God, our ministry received a major donation.  Just like last year when our supervisors sent that sad email subject header, “sorry,” this month we got a great one, “good news!”  And just like that, next month we’ll be rollin’ in the dough.  Well, not so much rolling as maybe scraping it back together. In either case, a well timed and well needed raise should make anyone say: Oh MY!

Unfortunately, a raise means one thing: decisions and choices.  I remember a few years ago one of my best friends said that she almost hated when her & her husband came into any large sum of money because they spent so long fighting about how much of it to save, give and spend.  I wasn’t married at the time so of course the notion of staying broke for the sake of having one less big argument felt a bit stupid to me.

I stand corrected.

Oh my.

Last but not least in any sense.  I am really struggling to make time for the Lord.  God hears all my “help me, help Haiti,” prayers but rarely anything else.  My Bible, well, it may just have dust on it.  I wish I could tell you I’ve been having great quiet times with Jesus in the midst of all this drama but I’m not. ;(  Which also makes me feel discouraged.  And, the thing is, I miss God, I really do, I miss our times together.  I long for those times, but I’m feeling a bit crowded by my responsibilities, does that make sense?  It’s not just prayer & Bible study either.  In general, my spiritual disciplines suck.  If you ever thought I was one of those have-it-all-together types, may you now know you were wrong.

Oh my.

Well, I’m 10 minutes passed when I was supposed to wake Rhys up and feed him, so I should end this long therapy session post.