Time to think

Poor Bean, she's had trouble getting to sleep lately.  I'm thinking she might be ready to go down to one nap.  The question is, am I ready for that?  I've gotten so used to our schedule and she's been sleeping so much better, I hate to mess with things.  But it's taking her a long time to get to sleep and I just don't think she's tired enough.  The good thing (besides getting lots of time to snuggle) about her taking a long time to go to sleep is that it gives me time to think.  The rest of the day is so busy, it's hard to have a calm moment to let my brain work, so it's nice to have those moments while I'm rocking her.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my aunt and my family in general.  My aunt seems to be doing pretty well all things considered.  I talk to her a couple times a week and she sounds like herself.  Tomorrow we find out the results of the scan they did to see if the cancer has spread.  Obviously, we're hoping desperately that it hasn't.  While I've been thinking about all of this stuff I realized that the only person who is putting so much pressure on me to take care of everyone, is really me.  My family was an odd place to grow up and while I won't bore you with the details, in a lot of ways I raised myself.  My mom had a very hands off approach to parenting and my dad was away for work a lot.  I learned to take care of not only myself, but of a lot of stuff around the house because my mom had some health problems.  As my parents have gotten older, they just have seemed less motivated to do things for themselves, so I've jumped in.  My brother isn't that kind of person.  He says he's willing to help if asked, but he's never asked.  I'm the one who does get asked if need be.  So I've taken it upon myself to do more then I'm asked to do, because somebody has to do it and my parents don't seem to be motivated.

I realized though that if that is causing me stress, it's my own fault.  I can't blame anyone else for it.  So I'm going to stop as much as I can.  I'm going to ask my brother for help.  I'm going to focus on my family.  My wonderful little family.  I still have responsibilities towards my parents and my aunt and I will fulfill them, but not at the expense of hubby or Bean.  For all I know, Bean could end up being my only baby and I refuse to miss or not be able to enjoy her childhood because I'm busy trying to fix things for other people.  I already feel like the last year has gone by so fast and I know it's only going to get faster.  I hope this doesn't sound callous or selfish, it's taken a lot of thought and emotional soul searching  to get to this point.  I just feel like I have one chance at this life and while I want to make everyone happy and do it all right, I deserve to be happy to.  I deserve to enjoy these things that I've worked so hard for.  I just have to remind myself of that every time I start to feel overwhelmed.