An Update

Once again, it's been forever.  I hate not blogging/writing.  I think it's good for my soul and mind.  At least once a day I think of something I want to blog and then evening comes around and then I'm in bed at 8 p.m.  Oh well.

Sleeping.
Well, it's been rough for Samantha.  At Joy's the past couple of weeks, she's gotten into the manipulative crying/pitching a fit/screaming.  It's kind of cute to hear the stories, mainly because it wasn't happening to me. If Joy wasn't moving, and Sam wanted to be moving; she would throw a fit.  Just things like that.  I love Aunt Joy to pieces.  Joy has been a real trooper by working with Samantha and the bottle.  Samantha has been for the past couple of weeks, been laying down in the pack 'n' play, fussing (or sometimes screaming) for a little bit and then falling asleep.  She tends to do her imitation of the alligator death roll.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch Discovery channel or something.  She seems to be always ending up face first into the sheets and sometimes she has her blanket wrapped around her (even her head).  Apparentaly we have a belly sleeper.  Though more often than not it seems that she doesn't stay asleep to long for a good nap. 
This week we had Monday off for Labor Day.  A few nights she slept horrible.  Enough that I brought her into bed with me - which hasn't happened in awhile.  At one point at 5 a.m. she fell asleep belly to belly with me.  I was thankful that I was able to get an hour of sleep before I had to get up.  Sometimes if she doesn't sleep much during the day she will only get up once at night.  That was not the case this week.  Wednesday night though she only got up 3x I think.  Anyways... last night was a little sketchy.  I had the monitor in my room, plugged into the wall because the batteries were dead.  So it was charging by the bed.  I fell asleep around 9:30 (how I lasted that long I have no clue).  At 2:15-ish I woke up and thought "hmmm... I can't believe she hasn't gotten up yet".  After I checked the time on my phone I look over to the monitor to just look at it I guess and guess what ... IT WAS MISSING!  Yes, missing.  I panic b/c I knew she had to have been screaming at some point. I go into her room and she is completely off the boppy and snuggled up in the corner of the crib with her face against the bumper.  She had to have been pretty "wormy" to have gotten all the way over there.  Who knows how long she was up.  Many people have pointed out to me that "hey, maybe she can cry it out".  Ok, ok, ok. Maybe she did cry it out.  Crying it out, doesn't bother me.  It's the screaming that I don't think is necessary.  The kind that leads to her sobbing and gasping for breath in her sleep (if she does manage to pass out).   Samantha also has the tendency to try to rip her face off when she screams.  She's had many scratches and gouges out of her face due to screaming fits. 
So I walked back to the room feeling like a pretty bad Mom.  Then I realize I have to FIND the monitor.  So I look all around the edge of the bed, under the pack'n'play, between the matress and the edge of the bed.... it's no where.  At this point I'm getting a little pissy and panicky.  Where in the WORLD could it be.  I finally think to move the pillows around since it wasn't in the blankets and there it was. I had put it under my two pillows.  Now I used to have a tendency to sleep walk and I've always talked in my sleep.  Maybe she started fussing and my brain just refused to wake me up ??? Who knows... She probably wasn't crying when I did, is my guess.  Either way it was dead, so the pillow had muffled the crying and then it had muffled the beeping. 
But then there is this thought ... maybe she didn't cry.  Maybe, just maybe she slept through the night?  Do I count this as her first night of sleeping the whole time???  She did have a little scratch there this morning, but it was more of a red mark, becuase it was gone by this afternoon.  So maybe, she did make it through the night.  It makes me feel a little better to think that she did, however I have a few doubts.

School - Is rough.  I can't seem to find the balance between it, FFA, Jim, Samantha, and the house.  The house is filthy.  Some people suggest that you need to concentrate on one room a day.  Give me a break.  This house is so cluttered and in desperate need of a clean that whatever room you start working on directly affects another room.  Oh well, I guess.  My afternoons go like this.
3:30 leave school (or sometime very shortly after)
4:00 - 4:14 - arrive at Joys to pick up Sam
5ish get home - start supper and a load of laundry if need be - keep Samantha entertained
5:30 - 6:00ish - feed Samantha her supper
Then give her a bath or have JM do it.
So then anywhere between 6:30 or 7:30 I nurse Samantha for her bed time.  Then try to lay her down and then struggle with getting her in the bed. 
After she goes down, I try to take a shower or clean something or on the slightest chance get some school work done. Oh and I eat and load the dishwasher every night too.
Then I'm usually in bed by 8.

Somewhere in there I eat supper, watch Big Brother, and have a conversation with Jim.  Please tell me, when am I supposed to clean? have a relationship with my husband? or have much of life at all? 
There in lies the word "BALANCE".  *sigh* that's a big, ugly word.  If I had it my way, I would take Samantha into her room or mine, lock the door, and throw away the key.  Which is basically what I did this summer. I really didn't go anywhere or do anything at all, except soak up as much Samee Jo as I could. 
Reality Check - that isn't going to happen anytime soon. 
So here's how I've tried to restore some Balance.  Jim now gives her a bath most nights.  I've made a rule that we can only go to my parents every other weekend, b/c I need the weekend to clean and be home.  However, if the house is clean I don't mind going down there.  It goes against every fiber of my being not to go down there.
Other than Big Brother, I can't tell you the last t.v. show I've watched from start to finish without missing any of it... .AND WE HAVE DVR!!
I love being a Mom. I just wish that was all I had to be. A Mom and A Wife.  Those weren't the cards dealt to me though.  I am very fortunate that I love my job or it would be an entirely different situation.

I could blog more .. but it's 8 and it's nearing my bed time.  Samantha's been asleep for almost an hour so that means she's definitely down for the night.  I feel a little lighter now after blogging .... maybe I will sleep well. =)