The Honest Truth

As each day passes and D-Day is closer upon us, I grow more and more anxious. Scared is more like it. It has been a tremendous challenge for me to be pregnant and take care of a toddler who has become more and more strong-willed and free-spirited every day. Things I said I would never do as a mom I am doing. (Don't worry, I'm not hitting my child other than the occasional swat on the butt when she's REALLY being disobedient for the upteenth time and I need to get her attention). But things like loosing my temper/patience/cool and raising my voice. Getting upset with her for something that I shouldn't be getting so angry over. And every time it happens (loosing my temper) I feel like the world's worst mother and I think to myself, "why am I bringing another child into this world when I can't keep my cool with one?"

 Having a child who is a difficult sleeper is such a challenge. She's too smart for her own good. She figures out our methods and finds ways around them. Now that she's potty-training she has another way of trying to manipulate her way out of going to bed. So we've limited it to two tries before lights are out and she's on her own. She wakes up pretty much every single night/morning between 2-4 AM crying. She has a loud cry. And it drives me nuts. I used to think that the baby crying would wake her up, but now I think she will be the one disturbing the baby. That doesn't make me nervous at all.

Janen's head is so much in the clouds sometimes. And she has a lack of desire to be clean and has been that way since infancy. She never cried when she had a wet or poopy diaper. I feel like this keeps her from being potty trained 100%. She KNOWS how to potty all by herself, when she's paying attention to her body and not caught up in twirling and singing with her eyes closed, she can walk to the potty pull down her pants and sit and even wipe herself without being prompted. But because of her personality I know it will be months before we are accident free for longer periods. She can go 3-4 days with no accidents and then have days like today where she poops...TWICE, in her underwear. joy.

Here's the real nitty gritty of the whole situation. For the first 30 weeks or so of this second pregnancy, I was worried that I wouldn't love this child as much as I love Janen. That I wouldn't feel close to her because of the fear that having another baby has brought me. The first child gets so much love and attention and personal one on one time with mommy. My guilt has weighed me down tremendously as I've thought about how much this second baby won't get that with me. There has to be some balance between my two girls now because either tip of the scale will make me feel guilty.

I am happy to say that my love for this baby has grown and grown and although I'm still nervous for her to join our family, I know that she belongs with us and she has a special and unique spirit to add to our home. But now I worry that my frustration with Janen will get worse as she continues to flex her independence and her poor sleep habits continue. And as a result she will feel unloved (unintentionally) because her overwhelmed and anxious mother can't seem to keep her anxiety and emotions in check. And in turn she will act out more and regress in potty training. I really do love my sweet Janen and would hate for her to ever feel anything less than spectacular. She really is a wonderful, amazing, smart and talented girl. She's not even two and a half and I can open up a book she's read before, turn the pages for her, and she can recite the entire story word for word. I'm not talking stories with one or two words on each page, but stories with 2-3 sentences on each page. She can sing me primary & Disney songs. And act out whole 3-5 minute scenes in movies. She has a brilliant mind and I'm so proud of her!

It's frustrating for me to feel this way. These thoughts and feelings have been with me for a long time, but have gotten tremendously more burdensome as my due date approaches. I never thought in a million years that I would ever feel this way about being a Mom. Never.Motherhood is honestly the hardest thing I've ever done. I know that has a huge part to do with how badly I want to be a good Mother to my children and give them everything they need. Despite the bad example of parenting that was shown to me.

Maybe things won't be as bad as I think they will be. Maybe I'm making it out to be worse in my head than it really is. I know there will be good days and there will be bad days. I just hope I won't have a mental break down on one of those bad days.

And that's the honest truth.

I think a priesthood blessing is in order...