Just good enough

So as I get bigger and further into this pregnancy I am tired and moving around is a chore. I have mentioned I watch two little boys twice a week. I have been thinking I don't need to take a little break after I have this baby I can just jump right back into watching them. Well today I am thinking I need a week or two off. I am just so tired, fatigued and I feel shot at the end of the day. It is non-stop on the days I baby sit, which is great I get lots done and my day flies, but at the end my back hurts and I am wobbling around because my pubic bones are hurting me. I usually get a little swollen at the end of the day as well. Not only this but I am emotionally not the same. So I take medication for anxiety and depression, I know gasp and cover your mouth I am not perfect. But I can't take it in my last trimester, which worries me because well I know I need the meds for anxiety more so than anything else. I am a better person with it; I deal with challenges and life better. I also had post-partum with Paiglee and I told my doc already I would be back on the meds the minute this baby is born. He kindly said I didn't seem to need it, (LOL) I said that is because I am currently taking it, silly man. He said you don't seem depressed, no, I am not depressed as much as I am anxious and get bouts of anxiety over little things.

So with this all said, I am not my normal great Emily self. Daryl has seen the change and I have and I don't like it but there is little a person can do about it. I try to cope with it the best I can. But watching three kids so close in age twice a week on top of pregnancy is draining by the end of the day. Plus I am doing my best to not let things slide around the house; it is a goal I made. But anyways I am rambling, I tend to have a shorter fuse and seem so finicky, and poor Paiglee is usually the one who is around and gets the brunt of it. Today she was emotional I think if she didn't have school it would have been a nap day, she would break down over me telling her to share. I got frustrated with her a lot today and yelled a lot. I know I was a little rough on her today. I guess I expect my four year old to hold it together when her mother doesn't have it together (I know talk about pressure). But while I was eating this evening, she was standing next to me; I looked at her and said who loves you. She then points to me and I say whom else and she says dad and herself. I then asked if I had been mean today she nodded her head, and then I said I know mom yells too much huh? And she so kindly shook her head no and I said no mom does. And I told her sorry and then she walked over and just gave me a big hug and laid her head on my lap. I then began to tickle her back, because she is like her mother and loves to be tickled softly and rubbed softly. But Paiglee showed me that she is one patient little girl with her mom. I think she knows I am tired and the last few days I just haven't felt great. But the tender moment she showed me was so what I needed.
I always have said I have to apologize for yelling at her when I have done so because I grew up with yelling and in turn am a yeller (that is kind of how it happens). It is my way of trying to break the horrible habit. I hate that part of me, and it is a hard thing to break and then add the anxiety, it is hard to work on and catch yourself when emotions are not at their norm. By no means is this an excuse, and I know because a yeller chooses to yell. Life is about choices and that is something you choose to do, to deal with what is being felt. But it is so nice to know that I have an amazing little girl who is so forgiving and patient with her unstable anxiety ridden pregnant mother.

Then the weekend of Nov. 5 Daryl and I and a few of his work peers went to a Conference. I did not attend I went for shopping and to get out of town. But after wards they all raved about how great the Conference was. The speaker was Dr. John Arden he is a neuro-psychologist, he was talking about the attachment theory and focused on being just good enough. Daryl was talking to me about it and just kind of re-telling what the Dr. had found in his studies and all that good stuff. He talked about how parents should focus on being just good enough rather than perfect. How being just good enough reflects real life more accurately for the child. Then how in turn it creates a stronger attachment between parent and child. There was so much more said but this is something that I loved. I beat myself up a lot about not being the best parent for Paiglee or how I wasn't there for her like I should have been when I had post-partum. But I know I can't change it, and in turn should focus on the here and now. But his study made so much sense to me and really how nice it is to kind of be told what you have given is good enough. I by no means claim to be a perfect parent I do a lot of what some would never do, and I don't do what others do, do. And that my mistakes are mine and to hear that maybe my mistakes aren't as detrimental as one would think, kind of loosens the slack and allows me to relax, and then to re-group and come back better for Paiglee.