Mayday! It's May!

This is Jack's third May, and I've come to realize that it has been a historically tough month for us. I don't know if there is something developmentally that happens at the midpoint between a child's birthdays, but this is a quick rundown of our May days:

May 2007 - Jack was six months old, and he had never slept through the night. At this point, he was waking up every two hours to nurse, which means SIX TIMES in a 12-hour night. He weighed 20 pounds, and our pediatrician told us that he should be able to last at least 8 hours without a feeding at that point. So we finally bit the bullet and had him cry it out. It was the hardest thing I'd had to do as a parent. Most people tell me that pregnancy and giving birth made them more emotional; for me, it made me more even-keeled. The first time I actually cried since I'd gotten pregnant with Jack was when I went into his room the morning after his first night of crying it out.

May 2008 - Sleep issues aside, up to this point, every stage of Jack's development had been more fun than the last. I remember thinking, "Wow, it just gets better and better." Then Jack turned 18 months old. This was what I wrote in my journal that month:

I have been having such a tough time with Jack this past month. I feel that he's at an age where everything is a fight with him. I'm exhausted and starting to doubt my parenting skills. It really doesn't seem that other people are having as hard a time with their children. Is he the problem, or am I? Does it matter? I don't know which answer would make me feel better anyway.

And I don't know if I'm just down already and therefore more sensitive, but I feel that someone is always looking askance at every decision I make. I'm being too protective; I'm not being vigilant enough. I'm not giving him enough stimulation; I'm making him do too much. I'm not giving him enough limits; I'm not giving him enough freedom. I need to give him more attention; I'm smothering him. I need to be more responsive to him; I'm spoiling him. I'm doing the best that I can, but I've never done this before!

Jack is just so high-energy and requires so much stimulation. I feel that I have to be on constant high alert with him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself or other people or that he doesn't run off and get lost. I feel that I spend most of my day on a continuous surge of adrenaline. It's completely enervating. And then there's the nursing, which is still so frequent but is the only time when he is calm. If he isn't draining me emotionally, he's doing it physically.

I know this is just a phase - or so everyone keeps telling me. I just hope that I come out the other side of it with my sanity intact. Jack is such a wonderful kid, and I know his toddlerhood is going to by so quickly. I hate that I'm spending so much of it feeling helpless and stressed out.

So here we are in May 2009, and Jack has been going through another tough phase. You'd think I'd be taking it more in stride now, but it's tough to teach an old dog new tricks. It's too much to write about now, especially since I'm right in the thick of it and have zero perspective. But I'm hoping we'll get through this latest stage pretty quickly and that I can look back on it one day and say, "You know, it really wasn't that bad."

* fingers crossed *