Blargh.

I feel like I’ve been overly negative lately. Probably because I have been overly negative lately. I had every intention of working to change my disposition, starting with a blog post about the things in my life that are going well.

And then, not two minutes after Lilian (finally!) fell asleep last night, we realized that Gracie had dug herself a tunnel, Shawshank-style, and escaped from our backyard. I spent an hour and a half that I should have been sleeping driving around the neighborhood looking for her. Sometime around midnight, Kristian called the company that chipped her and found out that someone found her a mile or so from our house. When he brought her back to the house, she promptly  made a beeline for our bed, where she threw her entire body-weight onto my face.

I’m not kidding, she launched herself off of me with a paw to the cheek.

Lilian woke up starving an hour later.

I’m working to improve my outlook on life, but the universe really needs to cooperate with me here!

My plan, going forward, is to ditch as many things that are stressing me out as possible. And to try and figure out ways to make the things that I can’t take off of my plate easier. Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot make time for in the day, the courage to force myself to do the things that have to get done, and the wisdom to know the difference. Or something like that.

So, I will be feeding my baby and doing everything I can to keep her clean and happy. But, until Gracie’s sheddings start clumping together into tumbleweeds, I will probably not be vacuuming.

I’d planned to apply to PhD programs (most of them have a January 15th deadline), but I’m going to wait until next year. I’ll probably have a better shot of getting in somewhere once I’ve finished my master’s degree, anyways.

I’m going to stop using cloth diapers, at least until I get some semblance of sanity back. Lilian can’t wear them at daycare, anyways. But now I’m not going to bother with them on weekends and the days that she’s with my parents. I feel terrible about this, because my sister and I invested a decent chunk of change in diapers and accoutrements. Also, the Lorax probably wouldn’t approve of all the plastic that we will now be sending to our local landfill. But the extra work that it takes to do all that washing is just more than I can handle right now. I can always start using them again if/when I get my sanity under control.

I am still going to attempt to eat right and stumble out a jog a few times a week (eating badly and sitting on the couch always seem to make me feel worse), but I will not be trying as hard as I was before to lose the baby weight. I dug out some of my smaller maternity clothes (sob!) and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it will probably be several months before I can even contemplate wearing my pre-pregnancy wardrobe.

I’m not sure what else I can throw off of my plate, but I’m sure I’ll figure out some things that I don’t actually have to do. I tend to be a “Sure! I can do that!” type of person. Which has enriched my life in countless ways. But, for now, I need to focus on my baby and my husband and my own sense of well-being.

You’ll notice that I didn’t put breastfeeding on the list of things to give up. I’m going to reevaluate my stubborn desire to keep it up, but for now I’m attempting to continue with it. I’ve only been back at work for about a week. I feel like I owe it to myself and to Lilian to wait and see if our schedule normalizes itself on its own. If I am still miserable a week from now? We’re going to start supplementing. And Kristian is going to take some of those late-night feedings.

What are some of the things that you do to make your life easier? And does anybody want to come over to my house and vacuum hold my baby while I take a nap?