Reading the post "Relaxation and Trauma" again, I realize that I still need to practice what I preached there--but in one way, I've made definite progress towards that goal: I've hired someone to come to the house two weekday afternoons a week, three hours each time, to care for the little guy. This, to give me a chance to rest or go swimming or, hopefully, both.
It was difficult to make the decision to hire someone--I immediately felt deficient as a mother. But that begged the question: would it be more proficient if I let myself fall apart physically and perhaps emotionally as well? We don't have any friends or relatives in this area who can babysit on a regular or even semi-regular basis. He's only had two four-hour sessions of being watched by someone other than his mother or father, since he was born. This, combined with the daily, garden-variety stress of caring for a baby who's perfectly normal and healthy and, like all normal and healthy babies, rambunctious, left me so drained that I'd stopped looking forward to anything except lying flat on my bed, taking a bath, or sleeping. My quality of life, to put it mildly, had deteriorated.
It was also very difficult to find the right person--I won't discuss the details of what happened--suffice it to say that the caregiver we've hired seems wonderful, and I have my fingers crossed because it's way too early to say if she's good or not. She was still in training as of last week. But all the early signs are positive; so I'm finally starting to swing away from the "trauma" side of the pendulum. Maybe by sometime next week, I'll start learning to relax again.
No comments:
Post a Comment