Ahhhhhhh!

Last night was awful! It is really depressing to walk into the bedroom and see the bed made, lamps on and remember that you'll be sleeping alone tonight...and every night for a long time. I guess I can say I was lucky that I didn't spend too much time in bed. Avery absolutely didn't want to go to bed. She was behaving strangely. She ended up getting naked and asking to use the potty four times. The fifth time she didn't potty in the potty chair-- so I thought it was a game. I quit getting her out...big mistake. She peed twice in the bed after getting naked. Keep in mind here-- I'm putting her clothes back on every single time. The sixth time (at midnight) I finally left her naked in her crib. I realized she may pee or poo in her bed and have to sleep in it but I felt like this game could have gone on all night. I tried everything-- snap diapers, difficult to remove clothes and almost used a safety pin to keep a zipper from going down but I was afraid she'd figure out how to open it and hurt herself. While this fiasco was going on from 7:30pm until midnight-- Ainsley was crying. I would tend to her-- go re-dress Avery and change the bedding..back and forth back and forth. At 2am Ainsley finally went to sleep...woke at 4 and went back to sleep at 6..but Avery woke up at 6. This was exhausting and I cried almost the entire time. I felt terrible for Avery because she kept saying "remember Daddy" as if he had been gone a long time.

Anyway-- today wasn't much better but whatever. Every day is going to be the same-- stressful and tiring. I tried to determine what I would do on Mondays-- I was going to scrub the bathrooms but I'm so tired I don't care. Maybe next Monday I'll clean the bathrooms. I did manage to create a craft for Avery. I printed Santa coloring pages. I let her color one. Maybe tomorrow we'll glue on cotton balls for his beard. I figured she'd enjoy dipping the ball into glue and sticking it on his beard. She is coloring inside the lines these days so I thought this would be a step up.

Stephen is about to arrive on base in North Carolina in the next hour. When he sent me that message I felt like this situation was "for real"...as if it wasn't real last night..or maybe he would turn around and come home. Ugh.

Stop the Count Down!

Ugh, 10 days until Stephen leaves for North Carolina. I'm trying hard not to count the days but its impossible. There are so many reasons why I feel anxiety about him leaving. First, handling a newborn with a super busy 23 month-old is really hard when you are sleep-deprived and not quite healed up enough to leave the house. Second, when he was gone for two weeks Avery was not happy by the middle of the second week so I have no idea how she is going to handle this extended absence. Third, how will this affect our marriage? How does it affect the marriage of other military families? It seems so weird to just take a break from being together for a year and expect things to be OK. Fourth, I have a serious case of baby blues and cry about everything and nothing so it makes me feel even more sad and anxious about Stephen leaving. Fifth, the holidays and winter are right around the corner and we already spend those times alone...to not have Stephen here will just make it worse. There are a lot of silly things that upset me-- I don't want to decorate for Christmas because I think it will just make my life more difficult keeping Avery out of things-- but I also don't want to skip decorating when she's finally old enough to maybe like it. PLUS we have relisted our house for sale and I just think the decorations will make it cluttered-- especially the tree!

Speaking of the house-- we dropped the price $44,000...SERIOUSLY! If someone doesn't buy it for this price then its never going to sell. Even though the market has pretty much tanked around here, the house is still valued at $218,000 so selling it for $174,900 is a steal. Know anyone? :)

Before Ainsley was born I was pretty sure I could make it being alone but right now...I'm certain I can't. Maybe things will change when I'm not in pain and when I don't almost faint every time I stand up due to some deficiency, including iron, from all the blood lost during Ainsley's birth. I don't know how other people do it. I hope I can look back in a year and feel good about surviving... for now I have a lot of guilt because I have resorted to letting Avery watch TV in the morning for 1.5 hours while I eat and shower and try to clean up a little bit.