Too much work and too little sleep = cranky mommy

Things have not been easy around here lately and thus the shortage of posts. My new boss (did I mention my old boss is now working in Poland?) is a lot less centralizing than the old one was, and he delegates a great part of his responsibilities on me. This is a good thing, really, since I’ve been working here for 5 years and was starting to feel underestimated.
However, the down side is that I’ve been positively swamped with work and the increased responsibility is taking a bit of a toll on me. To make things even better, Manel has been cranky lately (teething, I think) and has not been sleeping so well. In fact, I think I’ve slept a total of 10 hours since the weekend, which is so not enough.

Sleep deprivation is absolutely the worse thing ever. But some of it, I must say, is my fault. I’m always the one who wakes up with the kids at night because dh simply does not hear them when he’s asleep. He tells me to wake him up but if I’m awake anyway, there’s no reason to wake him up as well right?
But what’s really stupid is that when I do wake him up, I cannot go back to sleep until he comes to bed because I feel guilty that he’s awake and I feel bad that he’ll be tired. How absolutely stupid is this? He doesn’t feel guilty or bad when I’m up with the kids, and he thinks it’s ridiculous that I feel that way. And he’s right, it is ridiculous. But somehow I can’t help it, and so I find myself waking him up less often and then feeling resentful the next day because I’m not getting any help from him. Poor guy, he can’t win can he?

Spring at last

It seems that spring is finally here and the weather is good enough to start spending some time at the beach. Tomorrow is a holiday here so we’re really hoping we’ll go for our first swim this year, and Manel will have his first-ever day at the beach.
Then Monday is a holiday again (no wonder the productivity in Portugal is so low) and we’re going to the beach house with my parents and my sister, brother in law and nephew for the weekend. I missed the sun.
The summer is also the time of year when our camera gets used more often, so you should expect an increase in the number of pictures as soon as my skin isn’t transparent anymore.

How cute are they?

The fun is just beginning

Manel is doing great. He is just the best, easiest baby ever. He sleeps through the night, he goes to sleep by himself in his own bed (oh how well I remember those long, endless hours rocking R to sleep, how my arms burnt and how I cried out of shear frustration), he takes long naps in his own bed (again, so different from his older sister who would only take naps in the stroller or in the car), he eats whatever we give him and he hardly ever fusses unless he’s tired or hungry. I feel I’m enjoying this baby-phase so much more now than I did with R, because I’m not always stressed and tired and drained.
Life with two children has been much easier than we anticipated and the fact that he is so less demanding than R was makes us consider having a third in a not so distant future.

Rosarinho is also doing great. She is a big girl now, and raising her is starting to present different challenges. She is less demanding in that she eats what we eat, she goes to the bathroom by herself, she doesn’t take naps, she can (mostly) dress herself… you get the picture. But she demands more attention; she wants to tell us about her teacher, her friends, what she learned in school, over and over again. She asks questions, tons of them; she remembers everything we say (even if you think she’s not listening) and repeats it exactly when she shouldn’t. I have an amazing, yet sometimes strenuous, feeling that in every action we take we are building her character and forever influencing who she will be in life. I’m aware, like I have never been before, that being a parent is the biggest challenge of our lives.

6 months

Manel is 6 months old today. I can’t believe how fast these months went by and how he’s grown. He’s starting to sit up straight, he now eats solids 3 times a day and he’s starting to mimic us.

It seems like just yesterday I was finally getting the go ahead to start trying to conceive again, the horrible nightmare was finally over and we could regain control of our life. A year had passed since the words “this is not a normal pregnancy” had nearly destroyed me, and we were finally free.
It took us (only) 6 months to conceive M after that, but somehow it always feels like it took us almost 2 years, because that’s how long we had been planning and wanting him. Those were the longest and darkest 2 years of our life.

But you know what? Something I never thought would happen, did. Time healed those wounds. There are scars of course, but the wounds healed, and you end up forgetting about the scars most of the time. I thought I would never be the same person again, I thought something inside me had broken forever; I thought I’d never spend a day without thinking about it and mourning the loss of what could have been. But the fact is I was wrong. I do spend days, weeks, even months, when I don’t think about it. And I am the same person I was before, optimist, hopeful, intrinsically happy. And that’s because I am where I wanted to be in life; I have two beautiful children and a wonderful husband. Life has been generous indeed.

The Wedding - Part IV

The invitations arrived and, of course, they messed up. The map of the place where the reception will take place was supposed to be printed separately, but they thought it would be a much better idea to just print it on the back of the invitation and save some trees. My SIL was inconsolable when she saw it but all 200 invitations are already printed and my MIL refuses to send them back. I told her it wasn’t so bad and no one will notice but the fact is, it’s kinda horrible.

Tomorrow I have the afternoon off so I’m taking SIL to my hairdresser so we can start thinking about what she wants to do with her hair. Thankfully, I fully trust Esmeralda (the hairdresser) because my SIL’s taste is, how can I put it?, less than perfect when it comes to hairstyle. R is insisting on coming with us and have her hair cut so that should be a fun afternoon at the salon.

The coir we had hired told us they can’t come after all and we’re trying desperately to find another one. At this short notice, it’s not going to be easy. The fabric for the flower girls dresses has been bought and the lady who’s making them will start working on them right after Easter. Finally, SIL’s trying on her dress on May 10th. That’s all I can think of for now.

To be continued….

We're back

Barcelona was great. We walked a lot, we visited all the important sites, we had dinner at fancy restaurants, we shopped at nice stores. But most important of all, we spent time together, alone.
We missed the kids, of course, and they missed us (or at least R did; M smiled a lot when he saw us so I guess he missed us some too). But it was so worth it, as it always is.

I will post some pictures as soon as I download them. Today I’m going to Porto on the 4 pm flight, and I’ll be back on the 9 pm flight, so I’ll do that tomorrow.

A much needed vacation

We are preparing to leave for Barcelona tomorrow. Preparations include making sure there are enough diapers, wipes, formula, meds, etc. It also includes planning all M’s meals (thankfully, R eats whatever we eat), and packing enough clothes to dress an army of babies, should he have any “leaks” or other accidents.
Our flight is at 2 pm so we’ll wake up at our usual time; take R to school and then take all the stuff over to my parents. We have decided to avoid early morning flights whenever we can.

I know I will miss them tremendously, as I always do. But I am looking forward to this vacation, Z and I desperately need this time alone, and the kids will be just fine with my parents. I’ll be back next Monday.

Sibling Love

Yesterday we went to visit a nursing home for severely mentally disabled women. They like to have visitors, they like people to sing with them, to talk to them, to feed them… and they love it when people take babies to visit. So we had decided to bring Manel along but not Rosarinho, because she’s old enough that she would get too impressed.
When we told her she was staying with grandma and we would be right back she started a huge tantrum and wouldn’t let us leave. This is very unlike her; we leave them with the grandparents all the time and this was only for a couple of hours. I explained it to her but she just wouldn’t hear of it.
As I was trying whatever I could to convince her, I eventually told her we would leave M as well, not really expecting this to change anything. She immediately stopped crying and told us we could go, that she would be fine and would take care of him. Sometimes we don’t realize how attached she has become to him, and how lost she feels if he’s not around.

So when my MIL suggested that one of the kids stay with her when we go to Barcelona to make it easier on my mom, our answer was obviously no way. We couldn’t possibly separate those two.