You ever have those days where you are just completely and utterly exhausted? Yeah, that’s me today.

Little Man has just been so clingy the past few days. He cut one of his canines over the weekend, and the other is all red and swollen, just trying to break through. As a result, he’s just been miserable and wanting me, and only me, yesterday and today. I’m currently typing this as he sleeps half on top of me; we’re at full stage clinginess. Last night, he did leave me for a few minutes, threw a pillow on the hearth of the fireplace, and just lay down. It was the cutest thing.

Now, I know some of the clinginess is due to me. I did spend a lot of time yesterday sitting at the kitchen table on my computer, searching high and low for a deep freeze for the house here. And Sunday I spent a good chunk of time looking up local farms that were selling beef and hog (most of that was during naptime, though). When I’m not engaged or even just available for him, Little Man gets antsy, cranky, and clingy.

With the in-laws on a trip to visit the farm where we are getting the beef this morning, Little Man, Squatch, and I had plenty of time for ourselves. It was so refreshing to have a podcast playing in the background as we played for a while, and then I shared my phone screen with the tv and we had some Sesame Street songs playing. We all danced around, and then Little Man just curled up on my lap on the couch and we snuggled together for a bit.

While he is passed out on top of me right now, I am also just completely exhausted. I slept for the first 45 minutes of this nap, which was great, but now I’m even more tired. I can also tell that this exhaustion is from stress and just feeling overwhelmed and worthless.

It has been a difficult adjustment to coming back Nort and getting used to living with the in-laws again. I miss Little Man and I getting plenty of time to ourselves without anyone else. I miss him being able to run and yell and just be a kid without the side comments (to me and him) for him to be quiet, or to stop that, or just “What is wrong with you?!” being thrown about. I don’t like being judged for what Little Man does or does not eat. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to spend time with the in-laws, and for Little Man to be with Granma and Granpa, but I miss being a family unit of just the three of us. The few hours we had to ourselves this morning, before naptime and Squatch heading to work, were so peaceful and we were content.

So, I’m going to post this and then curl back up with my Little Man, hoping to get some more of a nap taken. Squatch and I are working on a plan for getting out of here and going to our own place, and I’m hoping we can get some time this weekend to get the plan a bit more settled and defined. I really need us to just be us, no grandparents in the day-to-day picture, and for Little Man to be a toddler without the negative commentary that is currently going along with it. It’s time to take time for me, and later, I can work out how to help everyone have a better daily life.