An Unexpected Stress-Buster

I've been having a hard time lately.  Nothing's even been that bad, but I have just been feeling stressed about it.  I blame being pregnant.  It's the perfect excuse for anything--forgot a commitment?  Pregnancy brain.  Too tired to do whatever?  Growing a baby--and in this case, my pregnancy hormones probably really are the reason.  But something unexpectedly snapped me out of it.

It started two days ago when Boo decided to not take her nap.  She was super tired by dinner time, but life happens and she got to bed late.  And then she slept badly.  I figured she was just having a hard time sleeping because over-tired little kids have a hard times sleeping (ironically).  Come daylight, we could tell she'd come down with a runny nose, poor thing.  No wonder she slept badly.

And, of course, when a two year old sleeps badly, so do the parents.  Especially not fun when you're pregnant and so tired anyways.

Then I had a pre-migrane.  My migraines always start with strange sparkling lines in my vision (imagine streaks of TV static), but they don't always escalate into a full migraine headache.  This one didn't, thankfully, but I just felt kind of off for a long time.

Next was lunch, and we had one of my favorite foods.  And I ate too much.  So I had a stomach ache.  (I know, poor me, ate too much of my favorite food.  I told you life wasn't actually rough, I just wasn't processing it well.)

After lunch, Boo again had a really short nap, and she woke up all sad.  (Still runny nose, and I think she's trying to outgrow naps.  I hope not, though!)

In the evening, dinner was rushed so Mr. MadeIt could get to scouts on time.  (He teaches the 11 year old Boy Scouts.)  And I had to wait for people to come and pick up some stuff I had for them, so Boo got to bed late again.  She didn't want to go to bed, but at least she settled down fairly quickly.

I needed to wash dishes, but if Boo heard me, she'd want to get up and help.  It would have been...probably half stalling going to bed and half actually wanting to help with dishes.  She loves helping to rinse the dishes.

So while I was waiting for her to be soundly asleep, I decided to take some pictures for my blog--not an easy task after eight at night in a dark basement apartment.  But Mr. MadeIt made me a light box, so I tried to set it up, but wasn't sure how to get it all together.  It kinda' worked, and I took a couple pictures.

I figured Boo was well asleep by that point, and was about to start on the mountain of dishes--really, it was bad--when Boo started crying in her room.  Dang.

I wasn't really feeling up to working through Boo's stall tactics, so I was glad when Mr. MadeIt got home from scouts while I was trying.  We got Boo back to bed, then my wonderful husband rubbed out the knots in my shoulders while I listed out all the things that were making me stressed.  (Including the lack of natural light in our apartment.  I read the other day that women are, as a category, more sensitive to that then men are, so maybe that's why it doesn't bother my husband nearly so much as it bothers me.)  I knew my problems were small, but I just felt that my stress-threshold was really low right then.  It was nice to explain how I was feeling, but I didn't feel less stressed.  (The massage helped, though.)

Then the last person finally came to pick up her stuff...and our talking woke up Boo.  Ugh!  Mr. MadeIt went to help Boo while I helped the visitor.  But when I was done, Boo was still wailing.  I went in to help and I found my husband supporting our little girl over the bathroom sink while she vomited into it.  No wonder she was wailing!

I took over for Mr. MadeIt, and he cleaned up what hadn't made it into the sink.  Sorry if this grosses anyone out, but I figure that if you're a mother, you've probably already had this happen to you.  To avoid too much detail, though, I'll just say that two outfit changes (we thought she was done before she really was, a bowl of Cheerios, and several stories later, Boo was back to sleep in her bed.

Great ending to my already-stressed day, right?  But actually, it was.  Not that I am glad Boo was sick--far from it--but focusing on my little girl's troubles made me not even care about mine anymore.  Who cares about the dishes or the dark apartment when my baby needs me?  I always knew my problems were small, but now I felt that they were.  And so I wasn't stressed anymore.  I just loved my sweet little girl, and wanted her to be happy and well.

(PS  Boo is doing better.  Hopefully she'll be fully over the illness tomorrow.)