On being a good neighbor and compromise

I wasn't sure if I even wanted to write this, since it kind of brings up negative and stressful feelings for me, but writing my thoughts down is one of the ways I work through things. It kind of frees up some space in my emotional bucket. So here it goes. You've been warned.

A few nights ago, I saw my mom pull up, and Savannah opened the door. My mom said she would come in in a bit, but that the lady who rents the downstairs apartment had wanted to talk. I thought that was a little weird, but not unusual.

When my mom came back up, she told me that the renter had a few complaints about me and my kids (my parents are the owners of this house, so they are the landlords). This really surprised me. She said that the lady had complained mostly of noise issues. She said that she didn't like hearing Savannah running around. The hallway is hardwood, and trust me, I know you can hear people walking around. I could always tell who was home by the sounds of their feet. But I got so used to it I eventually was able to tune it out. And I understood and empathized with her complaint because Savannah never walks anywhere. She's constantly running. I can see why that would be annoying.

She also complained that I clean in the middle of the night. This surprised me, because I usually do the bulk of my cleaning when Bryant get's home. He comes home, and relaxes while watching sports center, and keeps the kids entertained while I make dinner. After dinner, I try to get a load of laundry going, the dishes, and just general picking up and stuff that I wasn't able to get to with the kids clinging to me all day. 

But I shut down all cleaning by about 7:30-8:00. Mostly because I'm exhausted, partly because It's time to settle the kids down and concentrate on getting them ready for bed, and partly because when they first moved in downstairs, she told me that she goes to bed at 10pm. So I don't run any water except toilets, because I know how noisy the pipes are down there. And if the TV is on, we turn it way down (Bryant usually watches a game when the kids are asleep while I do homework, and he doesn't need the sound to watch a game. Plus, I don't like listening to the TV when I'm doing homework. It's distracting). So the fact that she had said I clean late into the night kind of made me feel really bad. And a little angry. Because I've always tried to be respectful of her bedtime. Besides, who really cleans in the middle of the night? Ain't nobody got time for that.

Then she had complained about Deagan crying during the night. As soon as my mom said this, I got a pit in my stomach, and that pit didn't leave for the whole weekend. I felt physically sick about it. Because I don't feel I can control that. 

Deagan started out as a decent sleeper. Getting up about twice a night to nurse. But he's 5 months old now. He should be sleeping through the night, but he's now getting up between 4 and 6 times a night. He fusses for a second, but I usually lay down with him and nurse him, and within about 5 minutes, he's back asleep. I've tried everything, from putting him in his own crib, To sleeping in Savannah's crib, to sleeping in the swing. To filling him up with rice cereal, a bottle, and nursing him before he sleeps. To co-sleeping, playing white noise, everything. But to no avail.

I have not slept entirely through the night since I was about 8 months pregnant with him. That's 7 months I've gone without a solid 8 hours of sleep. Believe me, I get it. No sleep really sucks. Like, really really sucks. I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry because I've already felt like a terrible mother, and here was my neighbor complaining about my son waking up so often and it was because I wasn't able to get him to fall asleep and stay asleep. I just felt like a big failure. So I reached out on facebook for tips on how to get DJ to sleep through the night. I got a lot of good recommendations, and a lot of support. But I still just felt so bad that I had bothered my neighbor so much, that she had to go to my mom to tell her about it. I felt like I was being tattled on.

That night was really rough. Now, Deagan is not a screamer. He's really easy to figure out what is wrong when he starts to cry. A quick diaper change, feeding him, or even just picking him up and cuddling him usually does the trick. He really is such a happy and easy going baby. But that night, he got a little fussy. He also had a slight fever for the last couple of days and I figured he just wasn't feeling good. But as we approached midnight, he started to cry. He didn't want to nurse, he wouldn't take a bottle, his diaper was dry, he wasn't too hot or too cold. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what he needed. And as he got increasingly louder, I remembered what my neighbor had said, and I jumped up, grabbed my bathrobe and a blanket, and took Deagan out to the car so that they wouldn't have to hear him downstairs. I sat in the front seat of the car in the driveway, rocking and shushing him, all while crying harder than he was for almost an hour.

The next day, I found myself trying to be quieter. I go barefoot in the house, but I decided to put on some socks and I kid you not, I was sliding around the hardwood so I wouldn't be so loud. At one point, Savannah was throwing a fit so I stuck her on the couch for a 2 minute time out. She started to cry and scream, and so I immediately took her out of time out because I didn't want my neighbors to hear her. 8 o'clock rolled around and Bryant and I went into whisper-mode. We didn't even have our nightly lounge on the couch and talk moment. We just hung out in our room quietly and went to bed early (early for us is 10pm. Thankfully DJ was asleep by then)

The whole weekend I had that awful feeling in my stomach. Like I had done something wrong and had been tattled on to my mother and I was ashamed of myself and embarrassed by how loud my kids were.

But then Sunday rolled around, and I didn't even want to go to church for fear of running into her and having that feeling wash over me again. So I laid pathetically on the couch crying because I was so tired after another night of no sleep when Bryant suggested we go for a drive.

It was exactly what I needed. The kids fell asleep 5 minutes into the drive so Bryant and I got a chance to just sit and talk. That's something that unfortunately, we rarely get time to do anymore. This morning, I woke up and realized that I couldn't, and shouldn't change all of my living operations. Sliding around in socks to be quiet for them? Just about the dumbest thing ever. Not to mention, not entirely safe (but it was sort of fun for the first 10 minutes or so...) Not getting a chance to unwind and talk to my husband? Not worth giving up. Savannah needed to be in that time-out because she needs to learn about consequences for her actions. She needed to sit and cry and scream, and get 1 minute tacked on for each minute she whined about being in time-out, because that's how I parent.

I couldn't live with the feeling that I was failing so miserably at being a good mom and being a good neighbor. Because let's face it, I am failing at it. But it's a learning experience for me. I'll never be a perfect mom, and I will probably forever be the world's worst neighbor, but I can't let trying to be the perfect neighbor and making other people comfortable get in the way of parenting my kids. 

I really think it all needs to come down to compromise. They aren't exactly the quietest people at 6:30am (um, like playing video games? Yeah, that happens...) But they have to live their lives too. And if anyone can empathize with her about getting no sleep because of a crying baby, it's me. Preachin' to the choir here! And I'd hope that they will come to understand that crying babies and footsteps above their heads is part of what comes with living in a basement apartment. But I know I can be quieter. I can try to put Savannah to bed earlier, and try to get her to walk instead of run around the house, and we can mute the TV completely when Bryant is just watching a late night game. We can put foam in the vents so sound doesn't carry, and I can get a long rug for the hallway to reduce foot-traffic noise. 

And I can turn the thermostat down to 65 and bulk up in sweaters and thick socks and heating pads, because they also complained about the heating being too high. (I keep the thermostat set to 70, which I thought was normal. What do you all set yours at? Am I just cold blooded or something?)

So I think I'll bake a plate of cookies as a peace offering and apologize to them. And explain to them that I'm just an exhausted young mom that's trying to sleep train her baby. And maybe offer to buy them noise cancelling headphones. Because I really like them. They are nice people and I understand that she's a single mom of teenagers who has to work early, and she needs her sleep. I can function on no sleep because I'm home all day. Sitting on the couch like a zombie while my kids climb all over me is my specialty. But I need to be considerate of her and what she has to deal with. There's nothing worse than going to work on no sleep.

Oh, and I need to apologize for washing dishes at 10pm tonight because I honestly thought it was only 7:00ish. No really, I thought it was 7pm and I just about passed out when I looked at my phone and it said 10pm. Where did my whole evening go???

Wow, how's THAT for the world's longest blog post? It probably doesn't even make sense, because I'm tired, it's midnight, and there is zero caffeine in this house right now.

But anyways, I feel better now that I've written this all down. Peace out!