I tend to make decisions slowly, and for the past few weeks I've been mulling over whether to begin working again in January. It would take some effort to re-open my practice and build up a clientele, but my husband would be able to take the baby on Sunday afternoons while I work with clients. It wasn't the immediate plan for me to go back to work; living on one income has proven to be too little.

I've been up with Mini-Me from 2 AM until now, 5 AM, trying to get her back to sleep as she fussed. With only three hours of sleep already tonight, I was having difficulty tolerating her fussing, and found myself getting angrier and more resentful the longer I struggled with her.

It gave me some time for contemplation, and I finally came up with this:
I'm not really getting any meaningful relief from Mini-Me's care. My husband takes her out for a few hours at a time, but it's usually when she's already sleeping or in a good mood, and it doesn't do a whole lot to help me recuperate from being on duty 24-7. I'll be damned if I'm going to carve 6-8 hours out of my week to take on clients. The last thing I feel like doing is committing to taking care of anybody else. Maybe I'll be ready for it in March or in the fall when Mini-Me is weaned, when I'm getting more sleep, when something changes, but right now I just can't imagine how restarting my job will be healthy for me.

I'm writing this down now, while I'm thinking of it, because after I'm less angry and I've had more sleep, I may forget that I already feel like "butter scraped across too much bread".