Needing "Alone" Time

Let me first start off with the fact that I absolutely love being a mother and wouldn't change that for the world. In fact I can't imagine life without little Josiah in it! We laugh and play and give baths and laugh and play and eat and have a good time. BUT I need time to myself! I need it more than I have ever needed it in my life. Josiah is always going to be ever present in my thoughts, however, it would be nice to have a break from the responsibility. This makes me feel guilty sometimes. So much so that I don't just take Josiah and hand him over to Dan and say "I need a break." I just hold onto him until Dan has the forethought to come and get him because I need a break(which for some reason he doesn't have very often...why can't they just read our minds). I feel that if I take Josiah to Dan, that I am neglecting Josiah, or that I am not being a good mother, that I can't handle my own child. A true dilemma for me! I assume that most women go through this, but maybe I am alone here.

This needing time alone is such a new concept to me. I am an extrovert through and through, but now I crave time alone. And I don't mean time alone when Josiah is taking a nap and I am trying to clean the kitchen or do laundry or whatever household chore needs attending to. But the alone time when I don't have to think about anyone but me. Kind of like "It's all about me" time:) And I don't mean 3 hours a day or anything. I mean 3 hours a week would be great. Now let me just step back and say that I do get alone time when Dan takes him here and there. But I always feel that when Dan takes him I need to be doing something housewifish (not really a word I know, but you get my drift). What I mean by along time is time when Dan has Josiah and I don't have to think about anything but me. For example last Sunday, I declared that I was going to have alone time. I fed Josiah and hten handed him off for the next 2 1/2 hours. I got out the foot spa, nail polish remover, foot scrub, lotion and nail polish and gave myself a much needed and much appreciated pedicure while watching my two favorite shows (Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy). I was in pure heaven. I felt so completely rejuvenated that I didn't even mind when Josiah decided that he needed to eat a half an hour before my 2 1/2 "alone" hours were done. I had finished my toes and I let them dry while I nursed him:)

So we went through the week and I took Josiah just about everywhere with me again this week. I even ended up taking him to MOP's (Mother's of Preschoolers group) on Friday night because he was going to need to eat right in the middle of the meeting. I figured I could just take him to the nursery and nurse him during the meeting. Well this plan went fine until he started to scream while he was nursing (gas pain's because I had eaten beans for a couple of days in a row...won't make that mistake again). So I had to leave the meeting for 20 minutes to feed him, and I didn't feel like I had gotten away at all. I resented the fact that my "alone" time was interupted. Next time, Josiah will get a bottle from dad. It is just so new to me to leave him home and to be able to give him a bottle, that I didn't even think of it and Dan didn't think to suggest it because I haven't done that yet. So the learning curve is steep right now, but we will eventually get this all figured out, just in time for new curve balls to come at us:)

Then I was really looking forward to some alone time tonight, since last week it worked out sooo well. We didn't get home until 9:45pm and he had to eat at 10:00pm, which was ok since Grey's Anatomy was on and I didn't mind nursing while watching my show . But I had expected to hand Josiah off afterwards. I even got him to sleep so Dan would just have to attend to him if he woke up. However, Dan and I hadn't discussed my plans and he came up to bed at 10:30pm, only 5 minutes after I got Josiah to sleep. And, yep you guessed it, all the commotion woke Josiah up. So now not only was I not getting alone time, but I also had to get Josiah back to sleep if I wanted to get anything done that I was going to do in the first place. He finally made it back to sleep after 11:00pm and here I am ranting about "Woe is Me." Tears were shed and I feel jipped big time, but posting this definately helped.

This is the first "Woe is Me" post I have had in a long time. I will probably post a few more, just so that people know that we are doing the same as all the other new mom's out there. It isn't all sunshine and rainbows all the time. There are tough times and I have definitely had my share of them like any new mom, I just haven't felt like sharing them yet. The focus has been on Josiah for a long time, as it should be, but now I am going to share in the limelight:) (as it should be).

This is probably my longest post ever!!! But sometimes everything you want to say can't be said in a nice concise little blurb with a cute little picture. Don't get me wrong, there will definitely be more cute little pictures to come, but I think there will be more "other" stuff too:) Thanks for listening to me rant and I hope that I really do get some alone time in the near future, but I won't be afraid to create the time if I really need it (which I do)!!!!!