Thankful Tuesdays: These days...

... life has gotten a little crazy. After we celebrated Lil J's birthday more than a week ago, he suddenly seemed to be hit with a bad case of terrible twos. It might also be due to sprouting molars, or separation anxiety, or the impeding arrival of #3, or perhaps all four factors rolled together (I remembered that Junior J also went through a similar phase, but of a milder nature. Lil J is waay feistier, so its been harder!). Whatever the case, the past week has been really challenging.

Firstly, the hubs was really busy the past week due to a conference, which saw him being away at nights for conference dinners. He had to do alot of running about, and the boys sometimes didn't see him for the entire day. He came home exhausted, and was busy all the way until Saturday.

Then there was Lil J, who started waking up six to seven times a night looking for me. He used to be a pretty good sleeper, so while we still co-slept (long story for another post I guess), I was able to get my chores and what-not settled after I put him to bed at night. But for the past week or so, he took ages to fall asleep (usually an hour or two), and would insist on being patted to sleep. After an hour of patting and nursing, he would then need to poop, and then I'd have to repeat the whole cycle all over again. When he finally slept and I left the room, he would wake up looking for me countless times, such that it was impossible to get any chores done. On nights that I gave up and turned in early, he would wake me up at strange hours, asking to go to the living room to find his toys, which many a times we couldn't find, since he would have stuffed them at some strange corner during the day. So I found myself walking about blearily at 3 am, trying to find his lemon or watermelon in the dark while he wailed in the room. After finding his toys, it would take another hour for him to settle back to sleep. You could imagine how tired he was in the day! And that led to many tantrums in the day and lots of crying (one tantrum lasted 45 minutes after we were late getting home after lunch and missed his naptime).

So I had all this piling laundry and chores and things to do (and no time to do them), plus Lil J's screaming and night escapades. And Junior J would sometimes also wake up crying at night due to his allergic rhinitis. And the hubby was so so busy and tired. I was exhausted from everything and very snappy.

I seriously don't know how we survived last week, but I'm just very glad that the hub's conference is finally over. We still have to sleep train Lil J to prepare for baby J's arrival (we did manage to do so with Junior J, so I guess its just little steps), but the boy has fallen sick and now we've had to deal with a high fever on top of his tantrums and sleep issues.

Whatever the case, I'm thankful for help from the hubs and my mum, as well as little moments of respite, like the two times we made it to the zoo/river safari across the past week:

And I'm thankful that we have a faithful God that sees us through these tough moments and difficult weeks. I'm praying hard that we'll be able to gently help Lil J through his emotions during this phase, and be able to get him sleeping on his own before baby J comes!

What are you thankful for this week?


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