nursing hormones are wonky.

Nursing hormones are wonky. They are waaaay worse than pregnancy hormones. They laugh at pregnancy hormones and whisper mean taunts like "You've got nothing on us" whenever pregnancy hormones start to get a little prideful. I hate nursing hormones. Just when I think I am level-headed, they scream at me and remind me what little control I have over my emotions.

Last night I found myself banging my head into the kitchen table as I listened to Birdie scream. She screamed 80% of the day yesterday and by 8pm, I felt irritable, emotional, and exhausted. I thought I finally got her to sleep after an hour of swaddling, unswaddling, reswaddling, burping, rocking, bouncing, and repeating the same pattern a few times. I gently placed her in the bassinet and sprinted out of the room only to hear her scream again. With no where else to go, I slumped over and sat at the kitchen table, and for some reason, my nursing hormones convinced me that banging my head on the table was the answer to my troubles. Jerks. It didn't work; I was left with a splitting headache and a screaming baby to console. I have no idea how I did it, but I mustered all my mama courage and walked back into the room and cradled that little fussy babe until she fell asleep again...only to wake up ten minutes later, but by that point, I just let her cry until her dad came back from working out a few minutes later. 

I stomped upstairs fuming that Tim was across the street lifting weights with our neighbor, even though I had previously given him permission to go. He came home to a raging lunatic. Tim didn't know I had lost my mind; I had previously had it an hour before he left so he probably didn't expect a harsh monologue of "Don't you realize what I've dealt with all day?" and "I can't take her screaming anymore. You have the magic touch...you deal with it" when he asked how he could help. Note: Men (if anyone other than my brother and father reads this)...do not ask how you can help when you see smoke rising out of your wife's greasy hair and you hear a baby screaming...just go and make the baby stop screaming with your secret dad powers. I have a love/hate relationship with those secret dad powers. 

I know you're dying for another example of my craziness so I'm happy to provide you with one embarrassing moment.

Poor Tim. I say poor Tim, knowing inside that I wish he'd think poor Janine as often as I think poor Tim, but really poor Tim. On Monday--the day before Birdie screamed all day--Tim met me at gymnastics. I asked him what he wanted for dinner, and innocently he replied, "Want to make spaghetti?" I scowled. "Do you want to go out then?" I squinted so hard I thought I might burn a hole in my dashboard. I turned to him and muttered angrily, "No, no, no." Confused, as men usually are by women who are making absolutely no sense, he asked, "So you don't want spaghetti then?" Grr. "Okay, you don't want to go out then?" Double grrr. "What do you want then?" I knew very well what I wanted. I wanted him to suggest, "Hey let's go get a burger so you don't have to make dinner and clean the dishes," and I suppose he sorta did that when he said we could eat out, but I wanted him to think of it and not leave it my hands. I really hate that. I was so mad that he couldn't read my mind that I asked him to get out of the car so I could go home and start the spaghetti. Never in my life has spaghetti tasted so bad. Poor Tim. Poor me. Poor spaghetti. ;)

And so is our life right now. Not every minute, and not even every day, but man, I'm a one man show right now. I'm up. I'm down. I'm happy. I'm sad. I'm angry. I'm laughing. I'm crying. I'm yelling. I'm giving the silent treatment. I'm shaking my bum to Taylor Swift with my girls while dancing in the moonlight. (Taylor Swift should really do a pop song about moms. Can't you just see the music video? P.S. Thank goodness for Taylor Swift. She makes cleaning the house a little less of a chore.)

Over the weekend I heard a woman say to another woman, "What if hormones and PMS aren't real, and this is just how we are?" And the thought of that just made me cringe. Haha. I can't actually remember what life was like pre-hormones so I am just going to believe that hormones are very real, especially nursing ones, and I am going to pray we can ride this crazy wave until it calms under a beautiful sunset someday. I hope that someday is soon...real soon. And I am also going to pray that someone somewhere can soon invent something that men can wear that allows them to read our minds when we want them to so that few words have to be exchanged. Words really make a mess of things when hormones are involved. 

And just because I haven't posted pictures lately because I don't ever think about pictures until I'm about to post something, I will just share with you some of the favorite pictures Nickell captured of Tim and me on one of my non-hormonal mornings (I got really hormonal right after the shoot. Oops.)

See...we really like each other when dinner plans aren't involved. ;)