Throwback Thursday - If You Can't Laugh At Yourself, You'll Go Crazy

Two things strike me about this post - 1) the timing couldn't be better, since our two littlest have been battling a stomach bug, and last night ended up being just one such night as I describe in my earlier post.  And 2) I was much more crude in my speech back then!  Maybe it was because it was just Facebook and not on the whole Internet (which of course Facebook is, but it's locked to anyone except my friends, giving me more security, false though it may be!)  Or maybe it was because I was in the throws of parenting three children ages three and under that left me a little rough around the edges.  Be that as it may, here are my undoctored (and uncensored) words from 2008.  Brace yourself! (it's really not that bad.)


If you can't laugh at yourself, you'll go crazy!
First published February 1, 2008

My youngest son Stephen has been sleeping through the night for the past three months now. Except for maybe one night a week, he goes down at around 9:00, and sleeps until 6:00 the next morning. Last night Jeff and I, who normally go to bed around 10:00, stayed up until midnight watching the season premier of Lost. About 2 hours after going to bed, I heard Stephen crying. That went on for about fifteen minutes, until Jeff got up and put him back to sleep. When Jeff got to bed, I thanked him and told him that next time I'd get the baby. The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I heard the baby crying again. Crap! I got up, mildly frustrated, and headed towards the baby's room. Any parent knows the feeling of waking up totally frustrated, stomping into your child's room, and having a total change of heart when you see your precious little one laying in the crib, only wanting you. I picked him up, sat down in the rocker, and rocked him back to sleep. During that time I thought about how nice this time was, how I don't get to sit with Stephen very often, how peaceful this time of the night is in my house, and how wonderful my little baby is. By the time I put him back into his crib, I had a total change of heart about the impromptu awakening. As I crawled back into my own bed, contemplating the next note I would write about how being awakened in the middle of the night can be a blessing not a curse, my thoughts were broken by another peircing "wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" from the baby's room AGAIN!!! Okay, now I'm just pissed!

So I got up, brought the baby into bed with me, and decided to nurse him. I usually try to avoid nursing the baby in the middle of the night, both because I don't want him to need that to go back to sleep, and I don't want my body to start to build in an extra feeding that I'll have to retrain it to remove later. But this being the third time in 30 minutes, I figured desperate times called for desperate measures. He laid with me nursing on and off for two hours, until at about 4:30 am, I put him back into his crib and again, snuggled under my own covers. Sure enough, like clockwork just as I'm drifting off to dreamland, my little darling is awake again (and not too happy about it). At this point, I am not happy myself, and begin cursing up a blue streak. Any of you who know my husband know that he loves his sleep, and is never too keen about being woke up. Especially when it is so rudly and abruptly, well, it's just a recipe for disaster. He cursed up a blue streak at me, and I promptly told him off before stomping off, yet again, to get my little angel. I brought him out to the living room to feed him - sigh - again.

At about 6:00, Stephen was done eating and awake, so I went to talk to Jeff about what had transpired earlier. We apologized and made peace with each other, and he got in the shower while I went downstairs to wake up the two older boys who, happily, were going with Jeff to the sitter's. When I went into their room, they were both out like a light. So instead of waking them straight away, I crawled into bed with my oldest son, Joseph, and put my arm around him. He rolled over to face me, put his arm around me, and said "are we snuggling?" I smiled and said "yes, we're snuggling". He said "okay...I'm ready to get up now!" It was a great two minutes though, and a nice way to recover from the rocky start to my day that had begun four hours before!

Why am I sharing this with you? Because I'm very quick to write the good stuff about my life, I thought it was only fair to share the moments like these as well. Moments when I don't truly appreciate the gift of my husband and children, moments when I'm not as selfless and loving as I should be. Moments when I take myself too seriously and get frustrated, when I could have saved myself alot of grief by just laughing it off. But there's always a bright side, and Stephen finally did go back to bed. And since the older boys were at the sitter's, I got to nap and recover the sleep that had eluded me through the night. So alas, all is well in the Mazerolle house again. I just pray he sleeps tonight!

Laughter.  The best medicine.