Exhaustion...

So Jack is almost 4 weeks old now. In the past couple of days, he's started being awake more often and for longer periods of time... which is awesome, because I'm excited for him to discover the world... but it sucks because I need to take a freakin nap. It's hard trying to figure out how to clean the house, take a shower, get dressed, and eat when I only have about an hour at a time to try to do any of it. He'll nap for an hour then be up for 2. And since Dan has been working the 10pm-7am shift then going to sleep, I can't pawn Jack off on him so I can get things done. So it's mildly frustrating that my house looks like shit and I stink and haven't had make-up on in 3 days.

Also, we discovered the blow dryer trick. Turning on a hair dryer when Jack starts freaking out makes him calm down. It's epic. Couple that with swaddling and a pacifier and while it still takes a while for him to fall back asleep, it gets him to at least stop crying without my having to hold his heavy butt.

Some random relatives of Dan's are coming over tomorrow. They invited themselves. That's nice of them... they must have known that I'm too busy and exhausted to extend the courtesy of inviting virtual strangers into my crappy apartment for the first time, so they just went ahead and told us they were coming over. How thoughtful! Seriously though, I'm over random people wanting to come over. Like, our parents and siblings, okay cool... but grandparents, great-aunts, 2nd cousins... come on. Wait until Christmas like everyone else. I had a mild panic attack the other night thinking about all of these grubby people touching my kid when he's not even a month old yet. And Dan got all mad at me because it's only his family that I'm freaking out about (only because all of my extended family lives 5 hours away and they're waiting until we go out next month, like good relatives). Then I felt kind of bad... but if Jack gets freakin hepatitis or the plague because I let Dan's great-uncle's daughter's best friend's husband hold him, I may just lock the 2 of us in a sterile basement with rationed antibiotics until his first birthday.

Okay... maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but still. And shut up.

Anyway, point is that I'm so tired. This new mom stuff is so much harder than anyone led me to believe, and for that, I hate every mom I know. Someone should have warned me 9 months ago that I would want to kill myself during this time.

I just hope the cute, I-can-hold-my-own-weight-up-while-giggling-and-totally-not-screaming phase is coming up soon. I need a break from this 24/7 job.

I'm actually really looking forward to the wedding we're going to in September. It's the 18th, and our 1 year anniversary is the 19th. So while it sucks that we have a family function we're required to appear at the weekend of our anniversary, my dad has been waiting with bated breath to get to babysit so Dan and I can drink and dance with my cousins until the wee morning hours. I can't wait.

We're actually gonna ask Dan's parents if they can babysit just for like, 3 hours next weekend so Dan and I can go out to eat in peace. While I'm still a little apprehensive about leaving Jackson with anyone else because of his ridiculous spaz attacks, every day I'm more and more eager to let them watch him. We need some "us" time, pretty bad.

Alright, I'm gonna go make some lunch while he's passed out. :)

Jackson is 26 days old and I'm in dire need of a nap.