Last year I wrote a post about being an SAHM who suspected she had a case of SAD: Seasonal Affective Disorder. Well, it has been a year and my perspective on the seasons has changed a ton! This year, I’m working hard to make winter my new favorite season. So far I am having some success!
I have always had some seasonal-based depression. I remember becoming aware of my mood change in high school. Around that time, I declared January through March– March especially!– to be the most miserable months in the year. So when a strong case of the blues hit me last year, I assumed it was due to the season. We did have an especially rainy winter last year. But I think a lot of my depression was caused by lack of rest. Scribble was 4 months old in January of last year. Around that time, sleeplessness had lost its novelty. Scribble was transitioning from sleeping in arms to motionless sleep, and at the time was waking up every 45 minutes, or simply refusing sleep altogether. A few weeks into 2013, we started sleep training. Scribble started taking 3 naps a day, which severely limited how much time I could spend outside of the house. All of this, in combination with the weather, took a severe toll on my happiness. I was just totally drained!
In comparison, this January Scribble is in a much easier phase. He sleeps 12 hours a night, and has one long afternoon nap. He is so active that I am nearly forced to get out of the house every day to drain his energy! We do classes and go to the park. None of this was an option a year ago!
My attitude about the seasons has changed remarkably thanks to becoming a mom. A friend of mine was musing on Facebook about how much she dislikes the winter season, and I commented that I was in full agreement. Another mom friend mentioned that she enjoys this time of the year because it offers a return to normalcy. In previous years this would not have registered with me, but this year it does. All the other seasons come with pressure to maximize every moment: berry-picking in the summer, pumpkin patch visits in the fall, Santa pictures at the holidays. All that merriment amounts to a mom who feels she is in a frenzy to hit every seasonal highlight. In comparison, January feels like an endless expanse of time that we can fill with just about whatever we want.
Continue Reading: Winter, My New Favorite Season