The thing about vulnerability...

Mal is five months old now and so much is awesome about him... but right now, I am discouraged, He is healthy. He is often hysterically happy. He makes us (James and me) laugh a lot. But he continues to be very, very demanding of my time and attention and I am weary.

"But of course he does!" you say. "He's a baby!"

No, I had another baby before this. I was not still strategizing my showers at this point. I was able to fix my hair. I could put on make-up other than when I was driving. I could make cinnamon rolls.

Mal's inability to sleep when he's down or alone is exhausting. I prioritize sitting because I know he needs sleep or he wouldn't be asleep, but I think of all I need to be doing and it stresses me out that I can't take care of these things when he's napping. He naps about 3 times a day, for 20 minutes to 2 hours. That's a lot of sitting for me. The only break I get is if he falls asleep in the car seat when we're out, and then I can usually buy 5 minutes to an hour.

So I first of all repent. I repent of the times I clucked my tongue at a mom "letting herself go." Or judged the BSF moms who never got their lessons done because, come on, we all have 24 hours in a day and it's just not that hard. Or developed a complete opinion of someone based on the fact that they shared a bed with their baby. I truly had no idea that a baby could be so needy for so long, and I am humbled.

There's this thing, though... I want to reach out. I want to ask for prayer. I want to stop crying at the drop of a hat and of being on the verge of a meltdown pretty much every second of every day. I love that my friends will do this for me. But there's another contingency of people who will add to their promise to pray with advice.

Well-meaning, but exhausting.

"You just have to..." they start out, often suggesting things I've tried that haven't worked for us. And often sounding so simple that you'd really have to be a dunderhead not to have it be successful for you. And it makes the stress WORSE.

"Moms have to take care of themselves first, or they can't take care of their families."

Sort of, yeah. But for a long stretch of time, that's proven impossible for me. Except for stress-eating. I'm doing that. That's how I'm taking care of me, I suppose. It's not horribly healthy, is it?

I'm leaving Mal alone in the church nursery. He has made it for half an hour twice. I don't really care to go anywhere for half an hour, so leaving him at home with someone (other than my sister) isn't an option.

This is where people say, "At some point, he's just going to have to cry."

Well, here's the deal: He's my kid, and I know him. I'm so much better at reading what he needs and wants, but there are some cries that are just absolute misery, and he's not going to calm down without me (and sometimes, he's not going to calm down with me). He gets a scared look in his eyes like "Why is this happening?" and I'm not going to leave him to deal with that alone until he's trained not to show his emotion.

There is a difference in fussiness and hysterics. I will often lay him down in his crib when he's fussy and I can't soothe him; very often, he'll calm down a bit... but never -- except that once a month ago -- go to sleep. At some point, he'll start realizing I'm not planning to come back, and he gets upset. VERY upset. Like, screaming, hyperventilating, rolling over and backing into the crib slats, getting his legs stuck awkwardly fits. The good part about this is that he usually manages to clear out his nasal congestion, very often all over his face or sheets. But that's one less thing for me to do, I suppose.

Anyway, this is all very defensive, and it's my point.

When well-meaning people give well-meaning advice, it can still put me on the defensive. I promise you, I'm trying a little bit of everything. My mom's heart and intuition tells me to keep doing what we're doing. I can only lie him down when he's sleeping and have him wake up instantly about 2-3 times before it makes me crazy, and I just have to hold him and let him get the rest he needs so he doesn't drive me crazy fussing from tiredness the rest of the day.

But the fact that I am pretty confident that we're on the right course with Mal does not lessen the stress of the moment. I don't know how much longer it's going to be like this. Forever? I cannot imagine how parents of special (constant) needs kids do it, especially if they already have children. Maybe he'll outgrow all of this when he's a year old. Or two. But I don't know. So even though I feel like we're doing the best we can for him and for us, I am deeply saddened by the fact that the rest of my family has to suffer with less attentive care (James is pretty okay with it; Daphne is another story). I am sad that I don't look "shiny" like I do in older pictures. I'm sad that I can't bake, or buy my own groceries, or clean my own house. I'm discouraged that I often wait hours from the first time I realize I need to use the restroom until I actually go. And this is not a matter of not wanting Mal to cry; it's a matter of his being asleep and my knowing he needs a full nap, so I dare not move lest he wake up.

Even moving into the kitchen to write this (with him on my lap on the nursing pillow), I had to get up from his floor, where I had been nursing him until my back started hurting, and he woke up and screamed and shook (he has a wonky little underdeveloped nervous system) until I was able to nurse him again and put him back to sleep.

Yesterday, I was talking to Daphne about this and told her that it's difficult, but probably the true way to look at things: We've talked before about how it seems like once you get all comfy in your life, things change. I told her that God doesn't necessarily want us to be "comfortable," as much as he wants us to be happy and fulfilled in him. I said that as taxing, exhausting, and even, yes, downright annoying as she might find her little brother, every time we start to get too stressed out, we have the choice to feed the part that says, "OMG, I can't even," or to choose to love a person who obviously needs more love and attention than other people do.

I firmly believe that God is using Mal to further smooth out my rough edges. And, dude, do I have them. With all of that in mind, I'd appreciate your prayers for me, my awesome husband, my sweet tired adolescent, and my teething buddy. And I'd appreciate it if you otherwise kept your mouth shut. :)