Not my best

That is how I feel today, not my best.  So I'm blogging during my scheduled writing time in an attempt to get out of my funk.  Why am I in a funk?  It's been a difficult few days for lots of reasons.

Bear's sleeping habits have improved (as in he is no longer waking up every 2 hours), but he still wakes up incredibly early.  This morning, for example, he woke up at 4:30.  He doesn't want to be awake this early, but he won't go back to sleep without help.  And that help, it seems, must come from me.  This is a fairly recent thing, since the move.  Until then, Archer and I had worked out a really great schedule for dealing with Bear.  We simply alternated mornings and nights.  If it was my night to get up with Bear, Archer got up with him in the morning and vice versa.  This meant that we both got enough sleep.  Mind you, we were both tired, but neither of us was exhausted.  At some point following the move, however, Bear has refused to let Archer soothe him in the night.  This means that Archer tries, and Bear screams bloody murder at the top of his lungs.  I can't sleep through this, and to avoid both of us being completely exhausted, I've gotten in the habit of just getting up with Bear.  As I said, most nights this is fine, and most mornings it is as well since he's gotten into the habit of sleeping until 6:00.  This morning, though, it wasn't.  Wednesday night I'd been up twice with Wild Man, who first wanted a drink and then needed to go pee.  Each time I was woken up it took me about 30 minutes to go back to sleep.  Then I was up early with Bear as it was my morning to do so.  Thus, this morning I was hoping to get some extra sleep.  It didn't happen.

After struggling to get Bear to go back to sleep for about 15 minutes, I finally brought him into our bed, as I didn't want him to wake up Wild Man (they are now sharing a bedroom).  After another 15 minutes, most of which Archer slept through (although he says he was awake, I argue that his snoring indicated otherwise), I got up to take Bear downstairs to see if he'd relax on the couch.  Archer woke up and asked me if I wanted him to take over.  Now, I hate this question.  Hate it.  And Archer and I have talked about this.  If he can see I'm struggling and at my wit's end, I'd rather he just take over.  I don't want him to ask me that question because in such a moment I'm not going to respond nicely.  As much as I mean to say, "Yes, please, thank you.  I really need a break," in such a moment, when I'm tired and frustrated and unhappy with my own behavior, I'm going to say something like, "Of course I want you to take over.  Do you really have to ask that question?"  That's what I said at 5:30 this morning.  And it didn't go over well.  Understandably, Archer doesn't like to be snapped at when he's offering to help.  I get that.  He said something like, "You don't have to be such a martyr, M.  Just ask for help."  That, of course, made it worse.  So I grabbed Bear and went downstairs, telling Archer I'd take care of it.  So I was now annoyed and frustrated and tired. 

I finally got Bear back to sleep at 5:30, and he slept until 6:30.  Between his wiggles and the cat deciding 5:45 was the perfect time for a snuggle, I didn't get much sleep.  When Bear woke up at 6:30, I woke up Archer and asked him if I could have a break.  He happily took over, and I lied down.  He forgot, however, to close our bedroom door all the way, which meant that I heard him turn on the coffee grinder 5 minutes later, just as I was dropping off to sleep.  So I got up and closed the door all the way, and that annoyed me more.  To be fair to Archer, our house is old.  Unless you close the door all the way, it will fall open again.  Neither of us is used to this yet, as we've only been in the house for 3 weeks.  I know he didn't do that on purpose, but again, in that moment, it really irritated me.

When I woke up at 7:10 I went downstairs, still tired and annoyed and frustrated.  I expected that Archer would have finished packing Wild Man's lunch, which I'd started packing the night before.  But no.  He'd hung out with Bear.  So I started doing the 45 things that are part of our morning routine.  He came into the kitchen to say good morning, and I rolled my eyes at him.  He knew why I was upset, so he said, "I was coming to do all of those things now that you're awake.  I know you can hear all the activity from the kitchen in our room.  Since you'd been up since 4:30 I wanted to give you a bit more time to sleep.  Let me do that."  To which I said, "Well you could have had all this stuff done if you'd just take the time to close the bedroom door all the way."  Archer walked away, understandably so, and left me to finish everything. 

We managed the rest of the morning routine without speaking to each other, which sucks.  It sucks even more because Bear is knee-deep in the terrible twos, and we normally get through his crankiness by laughing together.  This morning we were barely looking at each other.  On the way to school, I apologized.  I said, "I'm really sorry I snapped and that I was being so unreasonable.  I know you were trying to help me.  I now you probably feel like I treat you as though you never do anything right, and I'm sorry for that.  I'm really sorry I make you feel that way."  He nodded, but he didn't really respond.  I know he needs more time to process everything, and I know everything will be fine by this afternoon.  I'm just so tired of feeling tired and frustrated, and I feel like crap for taking those feelings out on Archer.