This has been quite an interesting last few days.
Let me just get right into it. Last night was INTENSE.
Vance and I got into a huge confrontation and I almost left him. I packed my most important things, the baby's diaper bag, and was ready to walk out. Why? After I had just got done gushing over what a great guy he was, why would I want to go anywhere?
We got home around 5 or 6 after eating at Friday's and getting a couple of things from Fry's. I got a Sims expansion pack. The baby was being fussy and I wanted to play my game so Vance volunteered to watch Deven while he watched Transformers. Apparently while I was locked away in my bedroom at my desk, Ipod speakers firmly tucked into my ears, all was not well in the living room. The baby kept fussing and the dvd stopped working. Vance huffed and brought Deven into our room so he could finish the movie on his computer. While I was still away in my own simulated utopia, the baby kept fussing, and about a dozen other things went wrong. I took the baby, and Vance turned to me with the most frustrated look in his eyes. "Why haven't we eaten dinner?" he growled. I thought we had eaten enough at Friday's, that he was going to be good for a while, and I was full I told him that I am indeed not his mother, and that there were cans of soup in the cabinet free for the taking. he stomped out of the room and banged the door shut and for the next 5 minutes all I heard was the fridge door and the cabinet doors slamming, Vance screaming "FUCK" every time I heard something slam. I can't stand seeing him get that angry, and over the most irrelevant things, and most of all, I hate it when he takes it out on me.
The entire time this was going on I was holding Deven and I just kept thinking about how if he were a little older how much this would scare him. I choked back my tears and decided it was time to get my point across.
This isn't the first time I have confronted him about his temper. It was never something that bothered me that much until Deven came along. When it was just us, I could handle it, I could throw the fire right back at him, but now it's not about how upset it makes me. Every time I have tried to calmly explain it to him it's like hitting a brick wall.
After I had my things together and the baby in his carseat I told him I would not go if he would just listen to me and consider what I was saying. That lead to a conversation about him possibly having bi-polar disorder, going back on medication, and then to a frightening discussion about meta-physics, existentialism, death, and questioning the existence of a God. This is the downside to Vance's intelligence: sometimes, he just doesn't know how or when to turn his brain off.
We had quite possibly the most open conversation about our feelings yet, and it turned out okay. We gushed over our baby's pooping ability's and put him to bed.
Speaking of Deven going to bed...
We have trained him to sleep by himself in his nursery. Oh God, getting there was agonizing. Friday night at bedtime, after his bath, we layed him down in his crib and walked out of the room. He screamed. We were instructed to only go in there every few minutes and for only a minute or 2 at a time. He cried for hours, which for any mother with a heart, is the most painful thing to have to go through. It was literally physically painful and nauseating. Finally, at around 1 am, he fell asleep, only waking up once at about 3. He woke up at 9 with his usual rosy cheeks and gigantic smile. He's definitely a morning person. It was harder on me. I couldn't sleep hardly at all. I kept expecting him to wake up every couple of hours or checking to see if I had rolled onto him during the night. Last night was way easier. He fell asleep at 1 and didnt wake up until after 10. Tonight on the other hand was like the last 2 nights never even happened. I put him down and he screamed for a half an hour before passing out.
Today was a better day. Vance was itching to do something since we spent the entire weekend pretty much indoors. We decided to try the Botanical Gardens at Zilker Park. It was beautiful, even though less than half of the park was in bloom or under construction. We took a ton of pictures, many of which I uploaded to flickr. It was just a nice, inexpensive (and by that I mean totally free) family day.
I need to get to bed. I leave you now with an absolutely adorable picture of Deven and Yalena, courtesy of my darling Jackie: