Frustration

[forgivenservant]

So Nate's been gone for almost 2 weeks now. The first week went sooooo much better than expected. Asher is my little sweetheart, my big helper, and I was handling them both great. Then on Sunday, I took them to our old church since we're moving soon, and that church is still our main family - but it's an hour+ bus ride each way, plus wait time, etc. Asher was HORRIBLE going down for nap. I blamed it on the long morning. But it's been four days now, and he's been getting progressively worse. He's seriously being a total brat, whiny, uncooperative, etc. He's also barely eating, and when I thought it was bad yesterday with him taking an hour and a half to fall asleep for nap, today he didn't fall asleep at all. The playing, screaming - I'm trying to be patient, but I have lost my temper more than once. Especially when Kai needs attention, too. I finally had to completely enclose his bed yesterday to prevent escape. Didn't help his sleep today, but at least I didn't have to keep putting him back in his room. But where did my sweetheart go? Is it just a prolonged spell of 2 year-oldness? Is it that he has two teeth poking through? Is it that it's finally set in that daddy's gone? I just hope it stops soon. This is not the mom I want to be, and I really don't like the feeling of resenting my kid.

On the upside, he had his first dentist appointment today, and except for almost falling asleep and being unresponsive at first (without the nap and all), he did really great. No fussing or anything. He wouldn't open his mouth very wide at first, but once she just tried with a normal toothbrush, he was like "oh! so that's what you're trying to do!" and was great. After that he let her put the special brush in his mouth and was an angel.

Kylen slept almost the whole day for some reason, and so was pretty fidgety tonight. I finally tried swaddling him again, which he's never liked, but this time I paid special attention to his arm position (he likes them on his chest a lot - almost always calms him down) and he accepted the swaddling, and went to sleep! I've typed all this and he hasn't startled himself awake yet, so yea! Which is really good, because since he kept startling awake so much when he used to be a good sleeper, I was really getting tempted to just let him sleep on his tummy. So I'm excited this worked.

Nate's home in just two days! Hooray! I miss him, but I'm also glad I got to see I can manage without him. I've made it, and it's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment (I know single & military moms do it all the time, but he's always been such a help, it's good to know I'm not a total wuss). And I've had time for introspection, also good. Anyhow, he'll be home late friday night, so Asher gets to wake up on his second birthday to daddy home! Yea! What a great present.