Let’s face it, pregnancy is tough no matter what. Pregnancy where you never get that ‘rebound’ of feeling better, all while dealing with a crabby 2.5 year old is even less fun. By the time my husband gets home, I just want a break. I want to sit and talk to him for a few minutes. From the time he gets home, until my little one goes to bed though, he’s ‘on’ for her. Roaring so she screams at the top of her lungs, sitting and holding her while he watches something I’d rather tear my eyes out than listen to on tv, and so on. They are always together. It’s not like it gives me a break, though. In fact, it’s worse. It just means I have NO ONE talking to me. Now some days, that is quite alright, but most of the time, it’s very lonely. I’ve tried finding other moms, but there just is a severe shortage of SAHM’s in this area. Everyone works, and all the kids are in day care. So it’s not like I can just pick up the phone and call someone. Everyone else is just too busy.
I digress.
The point is, that by the time my husband works from 5-2, drives home, and then is ‘on’ for her from 3-8, he just wants to stare at the TV and go to bed. I’m more than happy to sit still, but at some point, I would love to actually talk to the man again. For more than 5 minutes uninterrupted. He, however, has nothing to say to me that doesn’t involve cars or the latest computer thing he just HAS to have at some point. We didn’t have this problem before. We talked about the news and so on, but we had plenty in common, too. Now it seems like he just doesn’t care to talk to me at all. He talks to his friends at work plenty, so he has no need to talk by the time he gets home. I try and squeeze in stuff, but most of the time, it will take 2 weeks to get a simple point across about something, because we keep getting interrupted. It makes doing ANYTHING almost impossible. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great dad, and Keeley loves him and I’m sure the baby will love him, too. It’s just the fact that I’m left completely in the dark, sick or in pain all day, and trying to be excited about a pregnancy my husband doesn’t really seem to be all that interested in. Considering it was his bright idea in the first place, you think he’d get more into it. He did say he was excited the other day, but it was the first time in 6 months he’d said so. We only have about 3 months left to go. Nothing is done for the baby. Nothing. I’m sure we’ll get it figured out, but right now, feeling so… adrift in it all, just saddens me.
I wish I could be as ‘on’ for our daughter all day long as he is at night. I used to be, but I’m just too tired now. She frustrates me to the point of screaming every single day, most of the time before 8 am. That’s bad. She knows perfectly well what she should and shouldn’t do, but does the wrong thing anyway. Drives me insane. Where was this devilish creature BEFORE we got pregnant again? She was no where to be seen. She was adorable, she did what she was told, happily, on a daily basis. I rarely had to yell at her to get her to pay attention. Now I guess she has just hit her ‘own little person’ stage and says ‘screw you mom’ on a constant basis. In a few months, I’ll be too tired to care, but for now, it drives me crazy… and I feel like this poor fetus is going to get the short end of the stick. I was SO calm while I was pregnant with Keeley, and now it’s like I yell more than I’m quiet, and we can never do ANYTHING fun because of her attitude.
Well I’m not sure you want my two cents, but there you go:
#1 Being pregnant and having a toddler is rough – even in perfect circumstances. So if you aren’t feeling well it is just that much more challenging. Try not to be too hard on yourself.
#2 From age 2.5 to 3.5 was THE WORST with Harper. Sure she still does things that frustrate me but now she is old enough that she understands consequences a little better and can be reasoned with to a point. So I think Keely is probably partly going through the same thing LOTS of kids do, developmentally, at the same age. With Harper I try to remind myself that it is difficult to raise a strong-willed child, but that strong-will is going to serve her very well as an adult!
#3 When Harper was Keely’s age I was in grad school full time and then pregnant with Michael – she spent many, many mornings eating graham crackers and watching PBS while I snoozed. Were these my finest parenting days? No, but as she is finishing in kindergarten as a bright and social little girl, i don’t think those months of “relaxed parenting” did her too much harm.
#4 I don’t think guys get all that excited during pregnancy, period. I would say it is the exception rather than the rule if a dad is super involved before the baby arrives, especially when it isn’t the first baby. It probably isn’t an indication of how things will be once the new baby comes.
Hang in there – you guys will look back someday and all of this will be just a fuzzy memory.