I Can't Get a Break!

This is not me.  But I think it's an apt caricature of how life with little ones can feel sometimes ;-)

For a while now, I've been longing to get out of the house by myself, just for a couple hours.  It didn't really matter much what I would do, just so long as I could have some totally kid-free Christine time.  Tom's expressed a willingness to keep an eye on the kids at home so I could do this.  But I've been hesitating because of Stella.  She is a total Momma's girl, and basically flips out if I'm not in the same room as her, let alone the same house.  Also, with the exception of a couple successful attempts when she was a month old, she's refused to take a bottle.  In the past, when I saw babies act like this, I would judgmentally assume that the mother was "doing something wrong" and causing the child to be overly dependent.  But now I know it's not true!  Every baby is different, and every baby is needy...in different ways.

I recently rescued my childhood rubber stamp collection from my dad's house, and am excited to teach Sly how to use them.  But of course, all the ink pads are completely dried up after all these years.  I've been hoping to get to a store to buy a new ink pad, so when I got my 50% off coupon for Jo-Ann Fabrics in the mail*, I convinced Tom that this is just what it should be used for.  So the plan was to cut out of the house this afternoon to do that, followed by a luxurious trip (by myself!) to somewhere like Marshall's, to look for a couple replacement white t-shirts/camis (as well as to just enjoy browsing the housewares).

Before I left today, I swaddled Stella up nice and tight and nursed her until she fell asleep.  I ever-so-carefully transferred her to her playmat, said bye to the husband, and then sneaked out. My first five minutes in JoAnn's were heavenly.  It was the first time I've been all alone and out of the house in ages.  I didn't have a baby strapped on my chest!  I didn't have to push a cart!  I didn't have to keep an eye on anyone!  I was totally free!!  But then I made the mistake of giving Tom a really quick phone call to ask him a question about something we've been needing to buy.  When he picked up, all I could hear was the deafening and tormented screams of my baby.  Ughhhh.  I made some suggestions about ways to settle her down, and he answered in an obviously exasperated tone that he had already tried every last one, to no avail.  He made it quite clear that he would like me to come home as soon as possible.  Man.  Foiled!

So I never made it to the second destination, and I had to race through the first one much faster than I'd intended.  I hope Stella grows out of this "phase" (I sure hope that's what it is!) soon, because it's pretty tiring to be the only person who can hold her all the time.



*The 50% off coupon turned out to be such a cheap ploy!  It's only good on "regular-priced items".  But I walked in to find that EVERYTHING in the store was on sale.  The only item I saw that was not on sale was the candy in the checkout line.  So while you still end up getting a sale price on your purchases, nothing was as much as the 50% off you were expecting.  I felt pretty cheated.