Only have time to feel guilty

OK. So we're into the second week of my Lean Cuisine style of living (making sure I'm looking after myself). And I thought it was going smashingly well. On reflection, this is because a) the LGBB was gracing me - most days - with at least a 1 1/2 hour sleep in the morning, with the usual "don't expect more than 40 minutes out of me" nap in the mid afternoon, and b) there was a three day weekend in there where Steve was terribly helpful and I relaxed. A. Lot.

Lucky I did do all that relaxing so I don't feel totally melted down already because we're into a new week and, uh..... I'm back to feeling guilty for not spending lots of time with the LGBB when she's awake and yet she hasn't slept more than about an hour and 20 minutes for the ENTIRE day.

Took her to occasional care when she woke up from her sleep (read: when she'd wailed for 20 minutes after having a 10 minute bit of shut-eye, but at least I managed to gulp down half a coffee and go to the toilee in that time). She wailed there the entire time as well, except when her very nice carer carried her around the room. Still, better them than me. Just for 20 minutes.

We're home now and I just want to know how many others think it's unreasonable of me to just want some time to myself. Without feeling guilty. The LGBB is currently listening to her friends in the stereo (it's a Play School cd, dammit she loves it and I'm a slave to anything that soothes the beast lately) and I am hiding(?) in here. We've been home 15 minutes and I literally plonked her there and myself here.

Just. Need. A. Breather.

It's not like I'm in her face all day, she gets loads of time to amuse herself (and she's only been happy to do that again these past four or five days - before that, it was the whole Greek tragedy thing every time I left her side for the previous 2 or more months and that was difficult in itself to balance). I've no idea what other people do in terms of leaving their babies to "it" - I have tended to do the 50/50 thing, splitting her awake time into part play and/or reading with her then the rest on her own. But now she's awake for such a long time..... there's no way I can do that. It's not healthy for either of us, for one thing.

The nurses way back at sleep school told me one of my long term goals would be to try to find ways to assimilate the loss of my first baby with living with my living second one. It's difficult to explain just why it is that I feel so obliged to stay by her side, or at least allow her to see me, from wherever it is she is sitting. And I know the day will come when there is nothing I will be able to do and she'll be off into this room and that, then friends' houses, school, leaving home, yada yada. It's a very strange thing to live with this dichotomy between feeling desperate for space and yet needing to insure we are getting "enough" of each other. I think in all this, my cellular memory is calling out desperately for Ellanor. And I cannot hold Lolly to that flame.

But what am I to do? I do feel despairingly isolated. It's not something I wish to keep bringing up. It's not something I try to find in everything. And yet... it is in everything. It's only when I try to work through and peel back the layers to the source of why I am doing some of the things I am - and even when I don't see it, I've had professionals, like those nurses, gently suggesting it could perhaps be because we lost a daughter - that I discover it's sought me out again. I feel trumped constantly by this interwoven grief.

And I feel so, so, very guilty about the LGBB having to bear witness to my healing as I go. It's like a Painting By Numbers picture.

More physically pressing, though, someone recently asked me if she's dropped her morning sleep "yet". I think I weed my pants at the thought.