Adjusting

Aubrey has been back to work now for the past 4 weeks. We now know what it feels like to be parents in the real world. The first 2 months we had so much flexibility since Aubrey wasn't working and I only worked a bit. Now that Aubrey needs to be in bed by 9:00 and is tired in the evenings our roles as parents have changed. The first week he went back to work was brutal. I wanted to write angry blog posts every night, but never had the time. We were working at getting Copper to bed sooner (which wasn't always easy) and I no longer had the extra help at night. I still have the flexibility in the mornings with my wake up time, so Copper duty is all on me now. Also, we had been away from our house for 2 weeks and when we got back it was all about getting ready for Christmas with my family. My house was a disaster and I couldn't find the time anywhere to get anything done. I've always had the moto, "Organized house = organized mind." I had a very disorganized house (and quite dirty) and a high maintenance baby who refused to let me get anything done and I was also back to work. At the weekend of that first week I managed to get the house cleaned and my head screwed back on and things were looking up again. Fast forward 3 weeks and I am blogging at 12:15 in the morning on a work night because it's the only chance I've had to blog. My house is once again a complete disaster and disgustingly dirty. I took yesterday off and got a lot of much needed chores accomplished, but am far from having everything crossed off my list. I struggle with going night after night of accomplishing nothing. I don't want to be the mom that passes off the kid to daddy the moment he walks in the door because I've had her all day. Aubrey still needs his down time after working hard all day. Copper's not always the happiest baby in the evenings. With breastfeeding, I generally feel like my whole evening is spent with her stuck to my boobs. I pretty much get home from work, feed her, eat and then feed her again before I start the long process of getting her to fall asleep. Our goal is to eventually get her to bed by 7:30 or 8:00 so that Aubrey and I can enjoy some time together and after he goes to bed I can have my own alone time. While there were a few nights we were able to get Copper down by 9-9:30 and she would stay asleep, this whole week it's been 1.5 hours plus of feeding her just so she can wake up 30 minutes after I put her to bed. After a crazy Monday this week I decided to take a bath after putting Copper to bed at 9:30. About 10 minutes into my bath I could hear her crying and eventually Aubrey brought her upstairs. I got out of my hot bubble bath and went downstairs to feed her again. At 11:30 I put her back in her bed and came back upstairs to drain my tub and take a shower. Not the evening I had intended. Tonight for example, Copper clung to by boob for almost 2 hours and still woke up and fussed when I put her to bed. My alone time didn't start until after 10:30 and then it was spent working on our budget and getting tax stuff ready for our accountant. Since it's already later than shit, I figured I'd finally write that angry blog post that's been on my list of things to do for 4 weeks.