Overwhelmed

Joel is kicking my butt. You would think that by now things would be settling down into a routine, or as much as you can have a routine with a baby. You would think my experience with Gabriel would be helping me with this second baby. But my two baby experiences could not be more different. And I'm completely overwhelmed most of the time.

Gabriel was so easy (even though we didn't know it at the time). He had his sleep issues, and was a bit fussy when his teeth started coming in sometime around 6 months or so. But Joel has been so much more challenging. He started solid foods three weeks ago, but we are moving very slowly. This is partly because I want to take it slow and partly because he is teething. I'm not really sure if he's hungry and eating with gusto or if he just wants to get that spoon in his mouth to gum around on. He's now pulling it into his mouth with both hands for every bite, and getting extremely upset when I pull the spoon back to get more food loaded up. I usually don't even give him half of the cereal I made. But he ends up with most of it on him. Gabriel never grabbed the spoon and never seemed to get much food on his clothes.

He is drooling, trying to put all kinds of things in his mouth, has a perpetual runny nose, and seems pretty miserable the last four days or so. When I called worried that he might have caught Gabriel's cold, the nurse told me today that I probably wanted to avoid bringing him in unless he had higher fever or developed a bad cough, and that his nose could just be part of his teething symptoms. And it seems like I'm calling the doctor for various things about Joel every week.

The only way I could get him to take a nap before this extreme teething started was to put him on his tummy. This made me nervous, and I would check on him continually, but he would sleep for an hour or so that way. Now I'm afraid to do it because he's so congested, but he will not stay asleep more than ten minutes on his back or side. The only naps he's getting during the day are just after he nurses while I'm still holding him, or in the car, and he will wake up out of a deep sleep as soon as the car stops moving. When his teeth are really bothering him, he isn't happy in the swing, or the bouncy seat, or basically anywhere except my arms. It's getting more and more challenging to make dinner. The only thing that seems to pacify him is me singing Old MacDonald. I think one night I came up with over 25 verses, including jungle animals, to get the dishes done while he was in the bouncy seat. That was some farm.

And then there's the laundry. Gabriel never spit up. He just didn't do it. Joel has major spit up days every other day. And it seems to have increased the laundry by four large people, not just one tiny one. I feel like I just get finish folding one load when another is in the dryer waiting for me. It's starting to frighten me there's so much of it. I have virtually given up on cleaning my house, getting a room vacuumed here or there, dusting something off if it gets bad enough.

At least his nighttime sleeping has greatly improved. He's usually only waking up once, sometimes twice, and he doesn't make a peep in between. I guess it's the only time his teeth aren't hurting him. And know that no matter how hard it gets for me, one look into that face and my heart just melts and I don't care how tired I am. My poor little guy! I wish I could feel the hurt for him. He's such a sweet baby and has the best laugh. I just wish he felt good enough to use it more these days. I think we will all be having a party when that tooth (or those teeth) break on through to the other side.