The tears have arrived!

We had a great weekend! We drove to Big M (that's Midlothian) to celebrate Curry's (Lo and Gainesy's cousin) first birthday. It was a big shindig! My sister-in-law, Brana, did a great job putting together an absolutely fab birthday party for Curr-bear that was topped off with Curry running around in an adorable cupcake onsie with a huge tu-tu...oh so cute!

All of the family was there...grandmothers from both sides (four generations in the room so wonderful), aunts, uncles, friends and more. I love that most everyone in the room are Hola Lola blog readers and I'm so glad yall all love it so much. I received several comments from people saying "You seem to be doing so great...the blogs have been so upbeat lately"...YEA. And, yes, I am doing great but unfortunately the tears have arrived....tears of exhaustion. It's just part of being a parent I guess....

Why tears???? WELL!!! I've now hit my fifth straight night of 3-4 hours sleep max. OUCH!!! I'm in so pain...not even kidding...it really hurts...BAD! So much pain that when I woke up this morning at 6:15, the tears just busted out and didn't stop. I've tried to hold back for a couple days now but when you go night after night and hope that "this will be the night" and then it's not, it can be hard to take. Last night we tried to go to sleep around 10:30. Then the fun started...Gaines was up at 10:45 to eat (Clay fed but I was awake), then Lola came in our room around 12:30 a.m, then Gaines up again at 1:00 a.m. and didn't go back to sleep until 2:30ish and the rest is history. At one point I found myself cussing under my breath and begging for sleep....any sleep! Not so much!

Now, this is all partially self-inflicted. Clay is great. Time and time again he has offered to rotate and take shifts with me but I refuse. Not sure why. Well, maybe I do know why...maybe not...I don't know...my brain is foggy. But, my response to him when he offers is always, I'm breastfeeding and feel I need to do it as it's my "duty as a mother"...those aren't my exact words and I would actually never say that but it's how I feel...so obnoxious I know...I mean seriously...it's 2010 here...almost 2011...mothers aren't expected to carry the full parenting load anymore! On top of that, if I don't feed him, then my milk supply will go down. At this point, I should just let it go down but I'm too bull headed. Plus, I'm already awake and will be awake the entire time so I may as well just knock it out. No point in two of us being awake right?!?!?! Although I'm up often, I have it down to a science and "usually" (I put this in quotes as last night this didn't work out so well) I can get him fed and back to sleep in 20 minutes. But, as usual, I put too much pressure on myself which eventually causes me to break. Hey, we're all human and our body and mind can only take so much. You know I said on my last post that I remember it only getting worse before it got better.... Now that I've hit the breaking point, I feel surely it will only get better now...SURELY!

Another thing my friends and family always ask is "How do you do it all?". A couple things on this.... One, I don't do anything more than any other parent out there. Two, I don't do it "all"...you should see my house right now...I even have a hard time keeping the dog bowls filled with food and water. This, my friends, is not a sarcastic statement but a serious one...I'm usually made aware that it's time to fill the water bowl when I hear the dogs drinking out of the toilet...YIKES!. But, even with this, my response is always that it's that parental instinct that just kicks in and you just keep going. As a parent, we all do it! We all run 24/7. We all run on empty at times. For us, it wouldn't be so hard if Clay wasn't having to work so much...easily 60 hours + a week and that's a good week. He was out the door at 6:45 this morning. He feels just horrible when he has to leave me to conquer all in the morning on my own but he's definitely pulling his weight just by trying to get himself to a point to support this family and also trying to get himself to a point in his career where he's doing what he wants to do. Sometimes that means him leaving early, working late and working weekends. I'm willing to do whatever I can at home to help him get where he needs to be! I also know he would do the same for me. But, to really answer the "How do you do it all?" question....it's simple...this is how and why all parents do what we do and are able to keep going:

This ecard customized with Smilebox

Our kids give us that extra drive to do it all!

So, unfortunately, today, I have taken the blog down a beat but promise to get it back up. We started a new holiday tradition this weekend and went to the Christmas tree farm yesterday. SUCH a great time...Loved it! Can't wait to post pics of the fun.