I really try on our blog to emphasize all the amazing things that Elizabeth is doing because she wows us everyday but some days parenting Elizabeth is hard. It could be that Elizabeth is starting a growth spurt and I am sleep deprived because of her waking but I am finding myself short tempered with her. The things that she cannot control get under my skin and make me snap at her. She is very twitchy lately including in her sleep and her twitches include flailing limbs; her flailing knocks over drinks, sends cutlery flying, breaks things and leaves us in bruises. Her distractedness and impulsivity are pretty fierce right now and she needs constant reminders to pay attention to what she should be doing. I am constantly telling her to stop talking which kills me as we worked so hard to get her to talk but she often is too busy chatting to pay attention to where she is going and puts herself in danger. I hate to admit this but there are times when I want to walk without her because walking with her is still painfully slow. Because of her dystonic movements and her distraction walking with her feels like
I am in a funeral procession as we walk slowly to our destination.
I hate that I get upset with her because these are things that she cannot control. On a good day I try to teach her to be aware of others, slow down with her movements and think about what she is doing and we replay what she she should have done but on days like these I yell at her and put her on a time out which I hate. I constantly question myself am I being too critical, too short tempered and am I asking too much of her? I know I should be grateful of how far she has come along but sometimes I hate what her prematurity has done to her and how it has impacted our family.
5 comments:
OH hugs from S.C. on this mother's day! Cheer up, friend. We all have those days! Some days I could strangle Faith if she hits me in the leg with that stupid push toy, one more time! She always has to do it when I am doing dishes or cooking dinner or trying to focus on something! Makes me crazy!
I think this is the part about prematurity that no one ever wants to know or talk about - THE TRUTH. Emery still can't understand simple language. All day long he perseverates. It starts to grate on my nerves and I catch myself getting short-tempered and angry. He can't sit still and trying to get his coat on is a wrestling match every day. He still doesn't eat and spits his food out and this makes meal time depressing. Those are the days that I get depressed about what life has dished out. Then, there are other days when I love the progress he's made, when his smile can simply melt my heart and when I feel lonely while he's at school and want to hear his silly mindless chatter. You don't need to 'confess.' And while I can't offer you anything, I can say that I really do get it, and I understand.
Many blessings to you on Mother's Day.
I can SO relate... H and E are sick this week, and all of our "normal" issues are amplified by 100.
Happy mother's day! Don't be too hard on yourself:-)
Oh, ditto what everyone else said! And I hate to say it, but it made me feel better to read it as just tonight, I got totally short-tempered with Hannah as a direct result of my frustration over her limitations, and then I felt horrible after.
I often hate walking with Hannah, taking her to the bathroom, getting her dressed, helping her brush her teeth...any and all of the things that she wants to try to do on her own, and is getting SO MUCH better at doing, but still require patience as well as a back made of steel while I support her in her progress.
Sometimes I'll get frustrated with Hannah in public, like when she's having a meltdown because she's tired and hungry and she decides she doesn't want to walk so she just sort of folds into herself in her walker and I'll snap at her to "just get up and walk!" because some of her behavior is just typical 4 year old misbehavior, but then I think about what other people must be thinking when they see me yelling at my kid who can't walk on her own, to just walk already...
Ah, it's so tough sometimes...
Hang in there, you're only human and you do so right by Elizabeth 99.9% of the time and she is so lucky to have you.
I hope you don't mind me commenting, I'm a random stranger and know absolutely nothing about parenting a preemie and the complications that adds to life, but I can say that as the mother of two full-term babies (now 3.5 and 6) I have days just like yours - it must be very hard to tell what is due to Elizabeth's prematurity and what is due to her being the age she is....my two drive to distraction many days, the incessant talking (yep, so much so that they walk into things, drop things, forget what they're doing half-way through), the attention span that can be so long when eg they're watching a dvd but when it comes to listening to instructions seems to last 3 seconds max. So not as the mother of a preemie, but just a mother full-stop I'd say hang on in there, we ALL have days like this, with or without other complications. And yep, sleep deprivation doesn't help AT ALL, I can snap at absolutely nothing when I've shattered, so I can only imagine how much harder it must be when there are other factors involved. I just try and be honest with my two, even if that means saying 'look, I'm feeling rough, give me a wide berth for a bit'!! But you're a mum - good days and bad days are what we do, and sounds like you're doing a fab job!
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