Quite A Different Experience

I can’t really remember exactly what my first confinement was like. I only vaguely recall that it went by pretty quickly & rather painlessly. In fact, I thought I quite enjoyed it because it was my first baby, so everything was fresh & interesting, and my mum in law pretty much took care of the baby while I just slept & ate the whole month.

Now with Baby Number 2, no doubt there’re still interesting new things I learnt everyday, many of the stuffs are pretty mundane. Apart from feeding and changing diapers, the next most interesting thing I do is burping the baby after every feed. *burp* How very interesting indeed.

Plus, Joey has been staying at home most of the time nowadays, so my mum in law’s attention got to be primarily on her, so that leaves baby in my care. No more long afternoon naps like the first time round. And with a hyperactive three-year-old bouncing around all day at home, sometimes banging on her keyboard & drums, sometimes tugging at me to read stories to her or do colouring with her, it’s never really quiet at home nowadays. Oh God, I crave for some peace.

And so, there were times I felt really depressed.

Maybe I feel depressed because I am cooped up at home everyday. Maybe I feel depressed because I am sleep-deprived. I’m sure all that contributes. But most of the time, I feel depressed when I scream at Joey when she makes too much noise, or refuse to listen to instructions or worse still, choose to do the exact things we told her not to. I can understand she might be trying to get attention, having to cope with a new sibling at home. But when talking nicely doesn’t work, I sometimes have to raise my voice or even threaten with a cane. And all that makes me feel that I am a d**n lousy mother.

And after screaming at her, I feel so bad when I think about what kind of impact it would have on her. Would it deplete the love units in her love bank? Would she remember all these negative stuffs when she grows up? Would she see me as a mother who only knows how to scream & shout at her, and not a patient, loving mum? And I do know that my level of patience & tolerance is lower nowadays because I’m still trying to cope with dealing with 2 young kids at the same time. I have no doubt that all these is just a passing phase, and when I am able to cope much better, I will bounce back to be the nice mummy that I think I am, but now, it’s just very depressing. I do try to cushion it with lots of hugs & ‘I love you’ along the way, and I can only pray that all that can soothe the situation a little. Will Little Joey be able to understand? I certainly hope so.

This morning when I woke up however, I resolved to deal with my situation differently. Not by doing something differently, but by changing to a different mindset. I’ve realised over the years that my thinking can change many aspects in my situation. Sometimes when I think too much about the challenges I face or how ‘stuck’ I am in a certain place, I get all depressed and wallow in that sadness for a long, long time. It’s like a hole that sucks me in deep and surrounds me with all kinds of negative stuffs that do nothing to help me get out of the hole. But somehow at a certain point, something will struck within me & I will wallop myself into picking myself up. I don’t know what this is, perhaps God already wired within me this self-help mechanism, but in any case, it always works when I tell myself, ‘I want to see my situation in a different light.’ This morning was such a morning.

Do I still feel depressed? Yea, a little. But I am pretty sure I will cope better by the end of today. Haha, how’s that for faith?! Please pray for me ya? Although this sadness comes & go, I hope it will go away completely soon so that I can start enjoying life with my 2 kids. :)

Or maybe I should  do some more online shopping to make myself happy. Haha!