The Aftermath

So I have been up since 5 :30 AM,drinking coffee, and watching Handy Manny with 2 children who are going to be so miserable by 10 AM that I am thinking about crawling back in bed and hiding.

My kids used to sleep until 7 AM, pretty much no matter what. Occasionally they were up earlier, or would even give me the gift of an extra 30 minutes, which upon discovering I would smile and then freak out that they must be dead since I actually got a good night's sleep. But the past few months we have gotten earlier and earlier with our regular wake-up time, and I am desperate to get them back to 7 AM. I don't really want to sleep that long, I just want to be able to wake up, feed the baby, and shower in relative peace, without feeling like I am running in this race to finish before someone is screaming and crying. We have tried going to bed a bit later, which only leads to them getting up earlier. We have blackout shades. Even in Florida, where we were outside swimming and playing for 4-5 hours a day, they were up between 6 and 6:30. I am hurting, since I am also up at some point in the night to feed Sam. And since we have a dog, I can't go to bed too early, or I will wake up to a crate full of crap to clean up. I am stuck.....and I really can figure out what else to try. I also refuse to go out and buy anymore books on kids and sleep. I just wonder if I will ever get the IV drip of Dunkin Donuts coffee out of my arm anytime soon.

On a different note, a short update after my last entry. So M and L read my blog, and promptly informed me of their awareness. Needles to say, they were not so happy. So we had a big blow-up, several discussions with various members of the family, and a much more stressful vacation than we bargained for. Things are not great right now, but I think they are getting there. I am most concerned about having a good relationship with Alex's parents, but I think it will get worked out with his brother as well. L is very upset, and informed me of her feelings in a not-so-subtle way. She was not willing to talk about anything while we were down there, so we will see where things go with her.

I have been thinking a lot about what happened, my actions, others' reactions, etc. over the past week. I am so grateful for this blog, and having a place to let out my feelings before they really get to me. It really does make me feel better and help me process a lot of things. But I have always known that somewhere along this journey, someone might now like what I have to say. So here is how I feel now. I am not sorry that Alex's family is now aware of my feelings on this whole situation. I am sorry that M and L read my words instead of hearing them in a face-to-face conversation, and I have apologized to them for that. In the future I will confront them directly about anything that I have issues with. But I feel this explosion was a long time coming, and at least it finally happened and we are not all sitting around still waiting for it to happen. And I am eternally grateful for an amazing husband who stood by me and my actions through it all. Now we just have to let things run their course and go on with our lives.

That's about it for now. We have family coming in for the weekend, and I am really looking forward to sitting outside, grilling some good food, and having quite a few margaritas. Hopefully I will get a few more hours of sleep in the next few days, but I am not very optimistic. Oh, and I apologize for not keeping up on the Project 365 website. I have all the pics uploaded from my camera and just need to put them up on the site. I am going to try to get it done this afternoon, so check back later.

Thanks for reading.