Life Now

Paiglee squeezing Emery, a daily occurance

Emery had just been taken out of the car seat and she was tootin' up a storm and wiggling all over

Paiglee standing and holding Emery

Seriously Paiglee loves to hold her

I was trying to take some pictures on my own

Life has definitely been an adjustment for us around our house. My biggest adjustment is having to go to bed around 8 or 9pm in order to get the rest I need to function the next day. Plus this isn't easy for me, even if I am dead tired. I like to stay up and spend time with Daryl and it just be the two of us. But that is not an option now days. Sleep deprivation is hard for me, some do fine on little to no rest, I do not. But I am figuring it out for myself, and Emery is not the problem at all. She is an amazing baby, she literally doesn't cry. She is a grunter and when she does make a crying noise you know it is because something is wrong and needs to be tended to immediately, which is very rare. She has given me a few nights of 3-4 hour stretches, and some nights of 1-2 hour stretches with a few hours of wakefulness between. But there have only been a few horrible nights, and by horrible I mean I probably shouldn't complain because I know worse. She has begun to smile at Paiglee and me, Daryl isn't around enough during her wakeful times yet.

Paiglee seems to be adjusting well to Emery and has to be told numerous times a day to give her space or to not squeeze her. She loves her a ton and tells her and me that all the time. She asks nightly when Emery is going to sleep with her. She sings to her and loves to hold her. Paiglee is actually really good at holding Emery and I have allowed her to stand and hold her several times but of course with my very close supervision. Paiglee manhandles Emery very easily and sometimes has to be reminded that she is a live baby. Paiglee has been a big help to me, which is nice because when I sit down to nurse and have forgotten something it is so nice to be able to ask Paiglee to run and get it for me.

I do however feel like I spend very little quality time with Paiglee, as Emery takes up a good portion of time and then tending to the house eats up a lot of time, and by the time I get to Paiglee we have to take her to school or some other errand. Sometimes I just want to freeze time so I can do what I want with it. I could use more time, there isn’t enough time in the day to do all I need or want to. I treasure days like this where we have little to do and we can just hang out at the house. But it is getting better, now that we have less visitors and people coming over to see Emery (which was eating up a ton of time) I am starting to see more time and how our routine around here will be for a while.

I have become very picky about what I do with the time that I have with my family though. I get such a small amount of time with Daryl that I have kind of become a hog with him. I am glad we took the time before Emery was born to go on a few dates because really alone time where our evenings are just us is almost non-existent. When Paiglee was born we still had a lot of time together with Emery we each take a kid and tend to them. It is pretty much like that until 8pm and by that time I want to go to bed. I have tried staying up late but it just won’t work until I sleep more at night. I do remind myself every night that, some day I am going to wish for this time back. So as hard or much of a change it has been, it is worth every minute.

I have been doing so much better this time around. I have had a little baby blues but it isn’t bad. Plus what helps me cope is the fact that right after delivering Emery I asked Etman to put me on my meds again, he so kindly obliged. I didn’t even want to tempt fate with post-partum. But I have had a different little enemy come around again. Guilt! I have had a good dose of guilt these last few weeks. See as some may know or as I have mentioned, I had horrible post-partum with Paiglee. Sad thing is I didn’t realize it for a really long time, and I wouldn’t listen to Daryl about taking something, I was one of those people. I don’t remember a lot from Paiglee’s first few months or at least specifics about my time I spent with her. Mostly because I didn’t spend much time with her, I was very unattached. I fed her, changed her, dressed her, bathed her, but as for talking to her or loving on her I didn’t do much. I would leave her in the swing or the floor as she got older to entertain herself. I watched all 10 season’s of friends in the first months of her life and tried hard to stay out of her view as she got older so she wouldn’t want me to hold her. I remember one day when she was a newborn I was holding her and talking to her, she was looking at me and I had this overwhelming feeling that she didn’t like me. That was the last time I can remember holding her to bond in her first month of life. To be honest that time was a very hard time and I didn’t realize it then but looking back on it is very painful and brings me to tears every time. I have dealt with the guilt and have realized I can’t do much about what transpired. I thought I had forgiven myself and let it go, but having Emery and having an amazing labor and delivery with her and instantly feeling such a strong bond to her has been hard for me to deal with and not beat myself up over. I have an amazing amount of guilt over giving Emery the attention Paiglee never got as a baby. Having Emery around and seeing how great and sweet having a newborn baby around, has made me so badly want Paiglee’s baby time back. Part of me is sad that I really only get one experience of the baby time. The guilt is almost crippling for me. I have had a few times where I am sitting in the rocker in my room with Emery and think how much I wish I had this time with Paiglee, and think of how much Paiglee missed out on not having a mother who was emotionally available. I realize she doesn’t remember it, but I do, I remember and although no harm was done to her, I have a hard time knowing the drastic difference between Paiglee and Emery’s baby time. I am more than aware that I won’t let this guilt take away from Emery’s baby time. It isn’t going to keep me from loving on her like I wished I had with Paiglee. It is just those moments where the guilt hits like a ton of bricks that I feel horrible. I allow myself to feel what I am feeling and then tell myself things are different now. Paiglee has a better mom now and that because of it Emery has a better mom too. I know how rare and special this time is, and I can’t bare much more guilt so I take in everything. I have been trying hard to keep good notes. I want to remember how Paiglee is with Emery. I can’t express enough how much I am going to miss this newborn stage. And knowing how rare and special this time is doesn’t allow me to let the guilt hang around much. I am hoping that writing about it makes it kind of go in the background. I don’t want the guilt to take from me more than has already been taken. So I feel it, deal with it, and move on. To be honest though I am sure I will always have this guilt, because I find it hard to forgive myself for that time. I may have been going through a really dark and hard time in my life and it was hard but it took more from Paiglee than it did me. But you can’t change what you don’t see as a problem, and I didn’t see, and wouldn’t listen to Daryl.

So although everything around here is really good and has been a really memorable time for us all. I have had to deal with this in the midst of it all. I just refocus on the now and embrace it and try and set my guilt to the side.

One cute thing that Paiglee does is she pops Emery’s dream bubbles. You know in the cartoons how when they dream they have a dream bubble above their head? Well one day Paiglee asked why Emery was Whimpering and I said “oh she is probably just having a dream” next thing I know Paiglee is saying “I popped it, I popped it” and I asked her “what she popped” she said “her dream”. I thought it was so cute, and every time after that when Emery was sleeping and whimpered Paiglee would ask “you want me to pop it?” “okay I popped it, there you go, it’s okay”. It was such a cute moment I stopped what I was doing and wrote it in my journal. There have been many other cute instances like this one. It honestly makes each day so worth it for me.

Paiglee has also become so big to me and Daryl. She use to seem so small to us, like a baby. With Emery around she has grown up in our eyes. It is neat to see but also kind of sad since she was our baby for so long. But she doesn’t seem to have minded sharing our attention with Emery. When we give Emery attention she usually chimes in with us to give her attention as well. Hopefully it kind of remains like that and she doesn’t go through the jealous phase. So in all this time has been a really special time for our family and we have all really been enjoying it.