today i witnessed my daughter's jealousy for the first time while i had another baby in my arms. later i mentioned to i (my husband), that it was interesting to see that, and that i guess we're in trouble when we have another baby. 'i' quickly stated that he didn't think having another would be a good idea for us - he didn't think our relationship would survive it. he didn't think it would be good for either of us individually. one baby is enough of a strain.
we had had a particularly difficult day with our baby girl. she's teething, she's not sleeping, she doesn't want to play on her own and only wants to be in our arms. she's going through some growing pains - yet another trying stage. i have accepted that this is what parenthood is about. and despite how hard it can be, it's the most rewarding thing i can imagine. i do want another. i don't wait my girl to grow up an only child. i want her to share her life with another kid. to share in general. i want a family - not a family that is so small that we can try to pretend it isn't there. i want birthday parties, celebration, creativity, craziness, and even the growing pains.
my husband clearly thinks that this is all too much. i often find myself frustrated with him for seeing the glass half empty. i feel as though he's hard on us as a couple. yes, we've had some tough times, but we also have always had a lot of good. i also have heard of many men saying for a while after the first one that they aren't interested in having another, but change their minds. i really don't know if that is the case with i. i sometimes wonder if he has the capacity at all to be happy. i've only seen moments of it, and it really scares me that it's never been sustained.
here i am, kvetching about his unhappiness while just a couple of days ago i wrote an entry about depression. but i think that even if i have a bit of a case of the blues, i still see the sun shining, listen to kids laughter, pleasure in cooking up a storm, being creative, smell the roses and let it all warm my heart.
the worst is that i feel that all of i's reasons for why things have been difficult are because of me: i got sick on our trip to india and the virus hung on for nearly a year, then my dad died, then i got pregnant and was sick through that, then the baby came and was colicky. it's all my fault. what about his extreme moodiness, his lack of flexibility, his inability to deal with change. what about his disappointment in his family, his struggle to feel good about himself and what he is doing in his life. there are so many things that he has been dealing with since i met him. and yet the things i have struggled through are the reasons why he is not happy.
i'm feeling so sad, angry, frustrated. hopeless really. i'm sad for my daughter, sad for me, sad for him. life is so hard. brutally hard sometimes. but so beautiful too. i think of parenthood and particularly the process of birthing to then beginning a life with your child as the epitome of the pain and beauty of life. it's so contrasting; black and white, pain and pleasure.
oh kvetchie, this sucks. it's crazy how something so fundamental and something you're so sure about has to partially depend on someone else...
ReplyDeletegive it some time though, i remember when the monster was 11 months old f. and i had reached the peak of our tiredness. we were completely unable to fathom it when friends of ours got pregnant with their second at that point, even though we were sure we wanted another, eventually. i think it's very likely that a few months of sleep could drastically change his perspective. remind him, too, that if you have only one then you will always have to be her primary playmate, you'll never be able to send the kids off to play in the backyard and have them entertain each other. way more work in the long run, even though that's several years down the road.
i know it's hard not to want to resolve this right away, but i do think that waiting until you're both regularly getting some more reasonable sleep could change things...