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Sweet Smile

Another ridiculous day at the Zinnecker house.  I couldn’t help but start to blame myself for Betsy’s poor nap habits.  It is just hard to juggle two kids.  I almost wrote “manage” instead of “juggle” but then it would’ve had to have read, “It is IMPOSSIBLE to manage two kids.”  Am I right, moms?  No matter how hard I try it seems like I’m neglecting one of them.  I can’t leave Carson in the backyard for half an hour while I rock Betsy to sleep, and I can’t let her cry forever.  A lot of my day is spent torn between the needs of them both.  I want so desperately to be a really great mom and meet the needs of every member of the family, and it seems like I am failing someone at some point in the day.  That sounds a little dramatic.  I’m not on the edge ready to jump, but I am worn out and cried and prayed multiple times today asking for help.  Because this is impossible to do on my own.

So I read a bunch of stuff on sleep today, in the books I have and online.  This is dangerous.  It’s hard to read all that information, some of which is conflicting, and balance that with what you know about your kid.  I think I at least have a place to start with Betsy.  I’m going to have to work harder at making sure she’s getting the sleep she needs.  Apparently she should be getting 14 hours of sleep total per day.  My calculations tell me that she’s getting about 10 hours, maybe 11. This is going to mean doing less outside the house, at least for a little while, to get a routine of sorts started.  I need to put her down when she needs it and not let her nap in the car quite as often as I do on days when I have to run errands.  I do wonder though, this can’t be what every mom does.  There are moms who go shopping and lunch with friends with their kids in tow.  They’re not sitting around the house in their pajamas watching the clock to make sure their baby goes down within that “magic window” I keep reading about that produces no crying.  I dislike this stage of life.

One of the great things about this project is that I am already sick of iphone photos.  They’re not terrible, but I’m not becoming a better photographer by using instagram filters.  So yesterday and today I used our DSLR to take some photographs.  Today I even put the camera in manual mode and played around with the f-stop, shutter speed and white balance to shoot some pictures of Betsy.  I’m probably going to be famous for my child photography come December…