I Had a Bad Day

So, good news: for 2 nights of the past 3, Sam has slept for an 8 hour stretch (+/- 30 minutes) at night. Of course, between those 2 nights he had a night where he was up every 1-3 hours, so who knows.

The bad news: he is totally miserable during the day. Not sure what's going on, but ever since he hit his 12 week growth spurt 3 weeks ago, he's been way more fussy and clingy during the day. He pretty much refuses to nap...it takes me ages to get him down, and then he is awake again in half an hour. I think it's the lack of napping that's making him miserable, but again, who knows. When he's awake we get brief stretches of pleasantness, during which he is extremely cute and smiley and lovable. The rest of the time he is either (a) eating or (b) screaming. He is only content if I'm holding him, which makes getting anything done (like feeding Amanda) next to impossible. I'm pretty much at the end of my rope so I hope this phase doesn't last too much longer.

Today it was unexpectedly beautiful...a perfect autumn day. I managed to get both kids packed up and out of the house and we went for a walk at Lafarge Lake to enjoy the beautiful fall colours. Amanda was a bit grouchy...she would have preferred to go on a bike ride, but we decided on the lake instead (this required driving, and I couldn't get her bike in the car with us, so it had to be a walk instead). She complained that it would be "boring", but once we got there she was totally excited and seemed to have a great time, running around, splashing on the lake shore, and playing at the park. I was feeling good about myself, figuring that for once I'd managed to be a "good mom" and get the kids out for some fresh air. That good feeling lasted until I was strapping Amanda into the car seat, at which point she announced that she was right, it had been boring. Thank you, Amanda, for giving me a preview of what life will be like when you are 14. So my good mood was pretty much gone, and that was only compounded when we got home and Sam screamed for the rest of the afternoon.

By dinnertime I was desperately trying to get dinner made - I was actually going to make a real dinner and had everything out and ready to go, but couldn't put Sam down for longer than 10 seconds without a major screaming fit. I pretty much dissolved into a puddle and was feeling very sorry for myself, then decided that my only option was to bundle the kids up again and head out to pick up some food so I wouldn't go crazy.

I stopped for a brief minute to check my email before we left and got some terrible news about very good friends of ours, who just found out at 21 weeks that they will have to terminate their pregnancy. All of a sudden, my bad day seemed awfully petty. Sometimes it takes a major kick in the rear end to force us to count our blessings. Needless to say, our thoughts and prayers are with them tonight.

Here are a few photos from our day today - or check out the whole Flickr photoset.