*I will preface this mini rant by reminding you that I’m fairly nuts when low on sleep. That does not however minimize this important message to the easily offended. It needs to be said. Here goes*

Not everything ever said on the Internet is about you. I promise.

That post you saw on a Facebook wall about how much your high school band friend enjoys breastfeeding her newborn child is not a direct attack at you for formula feeding.

I swear.

The tweet your twitter friend helpfully retweeted about a formula coupon was not meant to undermine the breastfeeding struggles you have endured.

It wasn’t. She was just being nice.

Your girlfriend’s passion for car seat education is not a full-fledged judgement attack on you for that one time you were rocking out to Britney’s “Toxic” and nearly pulled out of the driveway without buckling the baby in.

Actually no one knew about it until I mentioned it. So. There you go.

Also if you don’t like people “judging” or “bashing” you for buckling up your child incorrectly stop posting pictures to various social media outlets of your child improperly buckled. People kindly informing you about car seat safety isn’t bashing. Seriously.

Oh, and yes. I’m talking to you. This one time it is about you. You know who you are.

Your cousin didn’t pin and “like” that pallet garden on Pinterest to mock your super awesome chia pet collection.

Seriously. No one is making fun of your Scooby-doo chia pet collection. Okay I am. But your cousin wasn’t. She just really freaking likes pallets.

Your sisters check in at an upscale spa in Vegas was not a thinly veiled jab at your acne.

If you feel that awful about it go get a facial. You’ll feel better afterwards. I promise. You may enjoy it so much that you temporarily cease your internet whining for a minute or two.

The church event Evite your great-aunt Matilda sent you is not a passive aggressive jab at your Wiccan practices and bimonthly wine club orgies.

Great aunt Matilda was just being nice and thought you’d enjoy a pancake breakfast.

That blog post your least favorite blogger wrote about how her two-year old son speaks Latin and plays the harp was not written to make you and your filthy, sand eating toddler feel inferior.

I have a sand eating occasionally filthy toddler too. I wasn’t offended. Children develop at different rates. It’s a fact of life and not a statement on the quality of your mothering. Pinkie swear. Kindergarten style.

Not everything everyone says on the Internet is a direct personal attack on you. Take my word for it.

Step away from social media. Frolic in a meadow. Get over yourself. Be happy.

Sometimes people like to say or do things because it makes them happy/it’s what’s on their mind/they find the topic amusing/they have passionate beliefs.

It’s not always about you.

Please calm down and stop polluting the Internet with your accusations of bullying, bashing, & judgment.

Good day.

.

.

I BID YOU GOOD DAY!

He is totally talking about you.

*This blog will resume its regularly scheduled programming on Monday. Until then please enjoy these ramblings from a sleep deprived lunatic. Sponsored by two gorgeous toddlers who
hate to sleep.*

Oh, and this reminded me of one of my favorite Tupac songs. Psst, the edited word is “hos”. You’re welcome.

I may have reevaluated my decision to breastfeed.

There I said it.

I’m exhausted, out of ideas, sad, and frustrated. No one told me that weaning is sometimes an excruciatingly long, difficult, and painful process for baby and mom.

I am a researcher by nature. I have a compulsive need to know everything. I remember obsessively studying the ingredients on cereal boxes as a kid. Monoglycerides! In my Sprinkle Spangles?!?

My memory may be failing me in my usual sleep deprived state but I do not remember reading anything, not a single thing, about how impossible it is to wean some children.

My daughter is one of these children. She is a frequent nurser on a good day and a constant nurser on a teething day. She is almost twenty months old and I am ready to call it quits.

I have no life. None. I can’t read a book, go for a run, or take a bath. I am constantly fending off nursing related tantrums. At night after an hour or so of comforting her and listening to her screams I am too tired to do anything but collapse.

Everyone is suffering.

Activities with Preston are often cut short because Cameron chooses to throw a nursing related hissy fit. He suffers.

My husband can’t sleep because she is up every two hours screaming and demanding to nurse. He suffers.

I don’t sleep. I rarely eat without her tugging, pulling, or screaming at me at home or in restaurants. I have gone out without her less than five times in a year and a half. I have no life. I suffer.

What am I supposed to do? Does anybody know?

I spoke to our pediatrician and he said she’ll just have to scream and will eventually be weaned. Great. That’s just what I need in my life. Nonstop screaming on top of her regular screaming schedule when I put her to bed/don’t nurse her immediately/someone looks at her funny. She cries. I cry.

No way. I cannot take more screaming.

Our dentist recommended night weaning for the sake of her teeth. Well. That isn’t working. Unless me having to wake up every one to two hours every single night for the forseeable future is working.

Is that working?

The Dr. Jay Gordon approach is not working for us. I am failing. Often I am so tired that I’m fast asleep before she finishes nursing. Boom.

She’s in my bed for a few hours. Another setback.

Obviously I want her to be happy and healthy. I would love a solution that worked for everyone but I haven’t found it. I would never abandon her and leave her alone in a room to cry all night. I can’t. It isn’t me.

I’ve thought about daycare to ease her out of her attachment to me but that doesn’t seem fair. Maybe it is? I have no idea. I really do not know what to do. I’m too tired to function properly and I hate everything about it. I feel like I could keel over at any moment. My eyes burn. My limbs tingle. I’m done.

She doesn’t like milk or juice. She rarely drinks water. She has hated bottles since she was about three months old. She isn’t a fan of sippie cups. She will sometimes drink from a milk or juice box. Sometimes. She eats constantly and abundantly. She is nice and chubby and healthy. What piece of the puzzle am I missing here?

Cameron is always happy, smiley, jovial, and playful unless she wants to nurse and I refuse. It is intense.

Some Twitter friends gave me advice. They say that after the third day of weaning things get easier. I’ve tried to night wean her for months to no avail. Taking it slowly, cutting out a feeding a week, distraction, and redirection do not work with her.

What am I supposed to do? Hope I survive without sleep until she is ready to wean God knows when? I really, honestly, and truly cannot do it.

Is the difficulty of weaning a secret or was I just not looking for potentially negative information? Would things be different had I know about the disaster that awaited me? I don’t think so. I still would have nursed but I wish I knew that the potential for this mess was there. I wish someone had told me but who?

Anyone out there with any weaning/night-weaning tips? I’m losing my mind : (

My sister was nice enough to share more insane messages she’s received on Match.com. I wanted to post more hilarious Tool Time (huge thanks to Alana for that awesome title by the way) for you but moving has me all kind of mixed up. I’m tired. What’s new? It’s mostly a good tired. We made it from Ithaca to Indy in one night. We stopped a few times and made it to Indianapolis in about twelve hours. It felt wonderful to snuggle up in a huge bed at the end of the night. We stayed at the same hotel we stayed at when we visited in October.  The awesome barista at Starbucks remembered me which was great. I am brand new to town but staying at the same hotel made me feel comfortable since I remembered how to navigate my way around downtown Indy. My husband booked us a suite which made things easier. I was concerned about how the kids would handle so much change in a short time but they enjoyed the hotel. Each morning before the kids woke up their Daddy had gathered them fresh berries, waffles, yogurt, and milk and they thought it was the coolest. I think they’re mostly happy to see more of their father. It’s been great.

We cannot stop eating (and I have ten pounds to go till goal weight so I need to slow down). You may not know this (I certainly didn’t) but the food in Indy is crazy delicious. First stop was The Tamale Place, then we tried Hank’s Smoked Briskets, and of course we needed some tacos, and we finished off with a great mother’s day lunch at Harry & Izzys. Before you judge us remember we have spent the last 4+ years living in Vermont & Ithaca where the food pickings are slim, very slim, and obviously we love to eat.

The kids are tired but are slowly returning to their normal schedule. Preston is curious about why we are in the “big city” and asks when we are going home every once in a while but he doesn’t seem sad about the move. He is very curious about the tall buildings and his new surroundings. We know how hard transitions like these can be for little kids and have tried to cram in as much fun as time allows (which is why we are beat). We visited the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Preston was in heaven and Cameron was…teething. We’ve stopped at a few great parks and we visited an amazing toy store.

The kids each picked out a new toy to bring to the apartment and we made new friends. I know I’ll be making many trips to that store and their staff is incredible. Preston fell in a love with a toy robot that was beyond cute but needed to be wound up with a key to work. No. Thank. You. We steered him toward the bulldozer he originally wanted and he was happy. Cameron had a blast on a rocking horse and if we were moving to Indianapolis for good I would have bought that thing SO fast but since we have a few more weeks of travel once we finish up here I knew a rocking horse was not an ideal choice. We got her a motorized Old MacDonald tractor (it’s her favorite song) that came with a farmer and animals.

Our new apartment is fabulous. It reminds me of our apartment in Vermont but bigger. It has four bedrooms and four bathrooms and is brand sparkly new. I love it. There is a small porch with a view of the Indianapolis skyline. The kids have room to stretch out and run. I can finally walk a straight line without bumping into anything. I could go on forever and if you follow me on Twitter you know I have. We are happy. Our dorm apartment is fine but four people in a small space can get hectic. We appreciate this breathing room.

Whew. So everything is great. My husband’s internship begins on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to catching up with some Internet friends while I am in the area and plan on exploring a ton with the kids.

Happy Monday & How are you?

~ Sarah Stewart Holland lives a big life with her husband and two boys in a tiny town in Kentucky. When not mourning the loss of The Oprah Winfrey Show or knitting, she blogs at Salt & Nectar.

Cara is hilarious. Period. She is a former MBA wife I met on Twitter. She recently started her own blog and I can’t get enough of her fresh and unfiltered writing so I invited her to guest post.

This post was inspired and partly titled by my dear friend, and sometimes sanity coach, Mia Austin. She is the originator of the Recovering Single Mom Brand, and I am ever indebted to her for making me aware of this very serious problem, and for inspiring me to believe help is available.

I have four-year olds. Up until they were 3 years and 8 months old, I was a single mom. My husband and I accidentally conceived our fraternal twins, and for the most part, both didn’t want to rush into a relationship based ONLY upon the fact that we had children. We had both seen our fair share of relationships in our families and friend circles die for that very reason, and because we both loved our children too much to disappoint them, we both decided it was best to parent together but hold off on marriage until we both were certain we were ready. Even if that meant we didn’t end up married to one another. Luckily, we got it together, did marry one another, and I am currently 5 months recovering from being a Single Mom.

Admittedly, I have relapses probably once a month. I override their father with at least one form of discipline every 30 days or so. I excuse them from something he had them do, and blatantly undermine his authority, because I didn’t feel what he did was best, and probably didn’t understand why it was even a good idea to do it in the first place. Every time I send him to the store I have a “GEEZ I should have just gone MYSELF!” moment. And what I most suffer from is the tendency to FLIP OUT monumentally when anyone praises his effort as a father. But right now, I am telling you I will overcome…

Recently I was upset because my husband reprimanded our son for spilling a drink and not telling us. Wait…why? Well, because my son spilled a drink my husband left out on the brand new dining room table all night. Doesn’t he notice me diligently cleaning up every single solitary dish we own nightly? Doesn’t he see me make the effort to rid our space of cups of anything because no matter how cute that little pie faced girl from Signs was, leaving cups of liquid around preschoolers is begging for disaster? NO ONE WANTS TO SWING AWAY, M. NIGHT SHAMALYAN; WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH PAPER TOWELS FOR THAT. Instead of being happy that my husband was correcting a poor behavior we were having trouble with, I was mad that the guy couldn’t put a cup away. Don’t question my priorities though, you would be mad too. Maybe.

I like doing things MY WAY. Usher Raymond my way. What I say goes…and I’m in control. *busts into a body flex* I wouldn’t say I was controlling, but I know my husband would. In fact, when I was having trouble writing this, he laughed at me about how the only time I am not controlling is when it’s in direct comparison to other people…like Kim Jong IL, and Fidel Castro.

But, let’s be honest, being a mom is about having some sort of control. The likelihood that you can control your children and their needs is slim, so you should have a handle on at least, oh; I don’t know…EVERYTHING ELSE. And I did. I fed, bathed, clothed, and cared for my household my way. I had to. No one else was there to do so, because of circumstances that I could have sat around crying about, but I didn’t. I got a grip and starting to maintain a safe and happy home for my twins. We created a life that worked for us, and I was in charge of it. Fast forward to the present though, and relinquishing that control gets a bit tough.

The funny thing is, most of the stories I could complain about here, as a recovering single mom, could very well be called “Things Wives Complain About”. The only difference is the back story. I was often told as a single mother, during tough times, that having a husband wasn’t some magic band-aid that fixed all my single mom problems. In a lot of situations a man might just have added to the chaos, or frustration because of the added opinion, stress, or just the addition of another human to the mix. But you don’t really listen to that when you’re alone and feeling struggly (yes, struggly. Don’t judge my grammar).

When you’re a single mom, you think of a husband as a magical, mythical being riding in on a noble steed in the sunset. Like Fabio, or Harry Potter. You think to yourself “…Goodness, self. If I only had a husband I wouldn’t have (insert problem here).” That just isn’t true. One of my favorite posts on this very blog is about NOT praising husbands for rudimentary things that they should do just because they are husbands and fathers. The big difference is women who are married have always had the extra set of hands, opinions and chaos. I learned how to move without all that weight, and now that I’ve gained it, and am having trouble adjusting my wardrobe.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, my husband is a great dad. He always has done absolutely the BEST he knew to do in every situation concerning our children. We lived 6 hours away from one another for the bulk of the time I was raising them, so obviously our relationship could have been poor and totally strained. We had our ups and downs, but really, on the whole worked well together as parents. That doesn’t mean everything was perfect, but “deadbeat dad” was NEVER a thought with the guy.

The problem is we live in a society that praises men but expects from women. When I was raising my children ALONE no one was giving me the raised glass, and congratulating me for being their mom. Now that we live together though, he gets props for being a dad ALL THE TIME. Even though it gets irritating, I have to constantly remind myself hey, it could be worse. He could be getting no props and you could still be parenting alone.

And that my friends, is why I am still a RECOVERING Single Mom. The spirit of the head honcho is still burning deep within me. When I am totally cured, I am definitely going to go ahead and write a 12 step program. And NO ONE better EVER try to improvise or add steps….just kidding.

Cara is a 28 year old Recovering Single Mom living in Annapolis, Maryland with her husband and ridiculously adorable 4 year old twins. New to the blogging world Cara is a SAHM that can usually be found reading books, blowing bubbles, or singing along to the Fresh Beat Band in her kitchen.