Brain Dump: Life, Work and Baby Bun
Needed to vent / dump my thoughts out.
FAMILY LIFE
My partner and I have finally reached a good place. Things have been rough ever since The Bun was born. Between my exhaustion with a newborn and his harping as a new father who wants everything to be perfect for his son (and exacting, super perfectionist, unrealistic-for-real-life standards), we have been having fights ranging from minor to epic.
I THINK things have improved because I have learned to try and be a little more of a perfectionist and he has learned to let the little things go and to not lose it over a few germs here and there.
He has learned to try and corral in his emotions & temper that can just erupt out of nowhere; and I have learned to not fuel it when it happens by yelling back at him.
What has worked for me in my responses is to calmly respond without a strong, angry reaction (my normal modus operandi) and in return, without any fuel to set him off even more, he reacts to my calmness and has controlled his own reaction.
We’re both people with emotional, hair-trigger tempers. And we have to work on that.
It has helped.
What has also REALLY helped is him not being at home while I am at work.
I felt the same thing when he was working and I was at home with Baby Bun — useless, ineffective, tired, stressed about not making money.
Although I must say that I find it completely unfair (still) that society thinks it’s OK for a woman to be at home with the kids because she’s a mother but father get off scot-free in any child-rearing duties.
I’ve been slowly just trying to let things go and to NOT step in to help get The Bun ready in the mornings, or do watch him when we’re both at home.
Sometimes he gets home from work and I’m in the middle of a frustrating episode with The Bun.
I just leave, go and do dishes and ignore The Bun, or take a long shower to calm down.
He senses it (is getting better at that) and steps in to entertain The Bun until Mommy calms down.
WORK
I’m exhausted.
My brain hurts.
I’m working the equivalent of 5 consultants and because it comes easily to me (and I work fast), it looks like I am doing this effortlessly and it is so easy but I can only let the mini hamsters in my brain run so fast before they all just give up and flop on the treadmill, breathing hard, out of breath & drained of every little ounce of hamster-ness.
I need a break.
What kills me is other consultants, are doing the actual work of 1 consultant (or HALF in some cases) and are making it look like it is so hard and it is the equivalent of 5 consultants.
(Before you ask, they’re all older than me and we’re making the same $$$$.)
At least now we’re sort of over the hump and it’s just coasting to home from hereon in.
I will say that it looks like they want to keep me on… for a very long time, so I could be looking at a very long-term contract with them.
I just hope the pace slows down or I get more help / time to do things properly.
I’m sort of disgusted with the way things are going and my own personal project standards are not being met due to the crunched time & stress.
My problem is my standards are too high. I care too much and it’s giving me a lot of unneeded stress because NO ONE ELSE seems to care the way that I do, except for maybe 3 other people out of a team of 50.
Very disheartening.
BABY BUN
My baby escaped from his futon this morning.
I walked into his room with a warmed bottle of goat’s milk to a squealing baby waiting at the door for me (he couldn’t reach the handles).
We had to remove all his futon bed barriers (big heavy boxes) so that he doesn’t accidentally baby ninja-fu himself over the boxes and break his neck in the mornings.
He had been working on his baby ninja game for a while, so it is not really surprise to me that he finally made it.
FOOD
I have a newfound love of wild mushrooms again. This stir fry was SO.. SO GOOD.
8 Comments
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Melissa
Just wanted to say that I find it so refreshing to see a venting blog post versus the typical humble brag posts I usually see on blogs… I hope things mellow out in your life soon but thanks for sharing the things that aren’t perfect, I can very much relate. 🙂
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Helen
I think you’re awesome at juggling work and life, so don’t stress out too much. Stress is the cause of all illness, after all.
Hopefully your partner will develop more empathy, work will settle down, and Baby Bun will learn that he isn’t an actual ninja. Just remember to regularly hit the pause button and breathe. 🙂
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Jess @ Best Credit Cards Canada
Having a newborn can be really stressful and it creates even more stress if you are already stressed about something else (like work or money)! My husband and I found ourselves bickering a lot more after our baby was born. We also found it helped to work on calmness. Not always perfect, but it helps!
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Sarah Li Cain
I get into fights with my husband because I’m the perfectionist and he’s more lax about it all. I have been letting go of most of the feeding duties (now that I’m not exclusively breastfeeding anymore, can’t outsource that!) and trust me, I have to keep telling myself it’s ok to leave baby with daddy for a while. Next mission, leave the house with only him and daddy at home so I can have alone time!
NZ Muse
I’m really happy to hear it. I can’t imagine how stressful it is having a newborn for the first time. (I think I’ll be the perfectionist – the standards of clean on his side of the family are rather low, kids are always super grubby, and his tolerance for filth has always amazed me.)