Coming out of the fog

I think. I've been living in crisis-management mode for five and a half years now, since B was born. Although I didn't really like being pregnant, when I look back at those days now, they seem almost idyllic. Life got incredibly busy and stressful starting the moment we walked in the front door with him in our arms. He was a fussy baby who wanted to be held 24/7. He refused to sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time for months on end. When he was about six months old, we discovered he had a pretty serious case of GERD, and by coincidence, a number of other health issues cropped up at the same time. It was a terrifying month filled spent in doctors' offices and hospital waiting rooms. In the end, it turned out he was fine, except for the GERD, which we managed to successfully control with medication until he turned one, at which point he outgrew it.

But even after we got past all that, B was not an easy toddler. His demand for constant parental attention continued. I saw friends' kids who could play for a few minutes on their own, or maybe watch a video or something, but B never could. He was prone to yelling/crying fits, or worse, hitting, biting or scratching, when he didn't get his way. [B was later diagnosed with birth trauma and spent a few months earlier this year in play therapy to deal with it, but the details of that are another post for another day. Maybe.]

Enter Z, when B was four years old. If we thought it was hard before, boy, were we in for a shock. There was a honeymoon period when B thought having a baby sister was the coolest thing ever, but it lasted less then a month. Then he decided two things: (1) he was going to get rid of that little girl by whatever means necessary, and (2) he hated M & me and didn't want to be in our family anymore. This made life very unpleasant for M and me for about a year, and I don't even want to imagine how unpleasant it was for poor Z at times. The chaos in our house was constant, and M & I felt like we spent more time yelling at B than playing with him some days.

The effect of these past five and a half years on me (afterall, isn't this blog all about me? not really, but it is MINE) was stress. All day, every day. For five and a half years, I have felt incompetent at almost everything I do -- my kids didn't get along and behaved badly in public, my house was a wreck, long-term projects like organizing photos or painting rooms got put off indefinitely, I rarely found time to exercise, I fed my kids not exactly junk food, but certainly not the kind of whole, healthy foods I'd always imagined I'd feed my kids, and M and I didn't have even a fraction of the time we needed together. The time I spent with friends slid down to virtually nil, I did pretty much no reading for pleasure (only parenting books, which I devoured in search of a solution), and all of my hobbies disappeared. I have felt out of control of my own life for a long time now.

But I sense a change taking place. Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting my groove back. I've been running consistently for almost three months now, and it feels great. Things have been surprisingly mellow around our house for the last couple of weeks, with the kids getting along beautifully with each other without our constant participation. B has been fun to be around (most of the time -- hey, we don't expect perfection!), and has been wonderfully helpful around the house and is trying hard to be a good big brother to Z. M & I actually sat in the living room and talked for a whole hour the other night after the kids went to bed. We didn't even talk about the kids or money! It was freaky. But so nice. In the midst of all of this, I have gradually tapered off the happy pill I've taken for the past six years, and I feel fine. F.I.N.E. The house is still a wreck and we're still about neck-deep in debt (better than the eyeball-deep it was a few months ago), but really, how much change can a woman expect at once?

Is it possible? Am I getting my life back? I sure hope so. It feels good.