I’m such an ingrate

So now little Septimus is here, I am thankful to God. Thankful for my sweet, sweet boy, and thankful that physically, I feel good. I felt incredibly crappy for the duration of the pregnancy from morning sickness in the beginning to all the body aches and the inability to walk in the end. No more low iron issues. No more heaviness. I can walk. I can breath. I can eat. It’s wonderful.
Before I had Septimus, I had everything ready-the stroller, the swing, the car seat. I just needed the baby. They say a mother forgets about labor after the fact, allowing her to have other children. I think that is a fallacy after so many children-I was in a sheer panic about labor prior to having Septimus. The memory of the pain was front and center. However, I do forget how incredibly sucky this part of motherhood is-the newborn stage. I remember it being difficult, but I forget how incredibly difficult.
Each day I get up and rush into the shower before my husband leaves. When he and the kids all depart the house at 7.25, I have this wave of panic run through me with the unrealistic realization that I have been abandoned. I don’t think it is a totally abnormal feeling (right Moms?), and my normal course of action to stifle it is just get started. Get breakfast, get school, get a load of laundry in, clean the house, think of something fun to do later for my therapy (usually sew or bake something or get a work-out in), perhaps shop around on Etsy for a cute pattern to sew. Before you know it, it’s 5.30, supper’s ready and everyone you missed so desperately is home! And look what you accomplished! Someone read another chapter in their reader, someone has a new dress, the rug is vacuumed, another teeth cleaning is behind us for 6 months!
Now I have my 6th colic baby who screams from the second he opens his eyes until I can get them closed again (actually, I have to hold him while he sleeps or he wakesup screaming no matter where I put him). Or if I put him down. And I don’t know why. And I don’t care why. In the past we did chiropractors, cutting out wheat and dairy, music, swings, simethicone drops-everything. Now it’s get passed the 3 month mark. Nothing else works.
I get about 5% of what I have to get done, done. I know many a wise Mom advises “just let him scream and do what you gotta do”, but his screams have an instant physiological reaction in my body that feels like someone taking an egg beater to my nervous system. It’s unbearable. So in the meantime, I just watch the house fall apart around me, get the bare minimum of school done, daydream about sewing projects I would like to finish before my kids get hold of the packages of bias tape and use them to tie each other up with.
I know this will pass because it always has, but when? Tomorrow? Next week? Will my family survive until then?
What’s frustrating is there isn’t a darn person around me who has a clue what it’s like. They all notice the laundry piles up, but can’t figure out why. They all know I am seriously grumpy, but Mom has issues. It never occurred to anyone that the reason why things ran smoothly before is because I was running things, not because it is in the nature of a toilet used by 8 people each day to simply be clean. My husband who comes home each day after a day of work is done for the day. He doesn’t get I am not done. Not at 5.30 or when I go to bed at night. Never.
To counter my ingratitude, each day I do a mental inventory of my life. I love my life. I love my family, I love homeschooling. I love showing off my kids (if it’s not the kind when they are screaming in public). I am thankful for a husband that brought me home a bottle of white wine the other night just because, and takes me out for a walk each night. I know each and every one of them is a blessing from God. I can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing and I am doing what I always wanted to do for as long as I can remember. And I believe in what I’m doing.
So what’s the deal? How can so much joy make someone so miserable? I get through it by offering it up and simply filing it under “Crosses to bear”, but there has to be an answer. There is a better way to get through this period without a crying fit everyday at 10 AM because you just want to clean the bathroom without hearing screaming, and you can’t. I know the answer is staring me right in the face, but I can’t grasp it.
And I know I am not alone.