This past year has really thrown me for a loop. I constantly feel like I’m playing catch up, and I’m always the person who had my essays written weeks before they were ever due. I read all the books for class the summer before classes even started. I had an entire years worth of birthday cards all ready written, addressed, and stamped, filed away for each month of the year for all of my friends and family.
And now?
Shit. Now I’m throwing together lunches for my kids seconds before we are headed out the door, and I honestly don’t know they last time I sent a birthday card.
Sorry. For real. I wish I was more on top of it, but this past year has just knocked me on my butt.
I don’t even really have a good excuse, other than we went from living the Aloha life where we had a flourishing community and my husband was actually home on the daily, to back to Midwest where M-F is spent parenting alone, and most of my time is spent alone with two adorable toddlers, and a sweet, surprise baby is on the way, and I’m really just tired. Like really tired. But I also don’t want to be so tired and behind that I miss it all because this is my dream.
Like really and truly. I am living my dream. So I don’t know how I can always be so behind and tired when I literally have everything I could ever want right here. Well, except maybe for my husband Monday through Friday because I actually super like him too.
I’m trying to make myself be more intentional. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the mundane of it all. Sometimes I forget to pause and breathe. That it’s okay if the laundry isn’t put away or that the floors don’t get vacuumed three times a day. Because lets be honest, my house doesn’t look any different when it all gets done as opposed to when it doesn’t (but I notice how good those baseboards look after I’ve washed them down. And there is some sweet satisfaction there).
We finally have beautiful weather and so we are basically living outside these days, and it’s pretty glorious. I’m starting to feel energized and awake again. Although my three-year-old is testing every ounce of extreme patience I have, I definitely have more to give when we are living outdoors as opposed to being cooped up inside.
Three year olds. Lord help me. He is just a fabulous, wonderful, delightful little human. Who is also trying to see if can make me throw out all of my respectful and gentle parenting beliefs. I will say thus far, he hasn’t succeeded. Well, maybe other than the moment I told him I’d have to leave him at home alone if he couldn’t pull himself together and be kind to his sister the other day. It wasn’t a proud moment for sure, but also, I like to remind myself it could have been worse. I didn’t yell. I didn’t manhandle him. But I probably shouldn’t have threatened him with abandonment, but what else will he have to discuss in therapy one day otherwise?
We’ve made so many plans this year that didn’t come into fruition, which is hard for me, as an avid planner. I’m also trying to learn to be better at “go with the flow.” J is so darn spontaneous, and I admire and also deplore that about him. I so badly want to be like that, but it’s also kind of maddening at times.
I feel like I’m on a constant quest to declutter and minimize, and I don’t even know how it’s possible when we went from comfortably living in 800 square feet a year ago to now being in nearly 2700 square feet, and I definitely feel more overwhelmed and swallowed up here than I did there. Like how? And why isn’t it possible to get rid of all. the. stuff?
And at the same time I feel like we need more space because I don’t even know where to put kids at this point.
Sweet M just started sleeping on his own this past week, and I put him in B’s room because I don’t want him sharing a room with Bean because she sleeps so darn well that I don’t want to mess it up. And H deserves her own space; she’s 9 and entering tweendom and I want her to have that space. But omg. Mr. B and Sweet M really do love each other, but they also butt heads and should not share a room. Fortunately M is young enough now that all of his toys are pretty much downstairs and his clothes are in Bean’s room, so basically he is just in there to sleep but there have been a lot of sad, “I don’t even have a bedroom!” moments from him and that’s a little gut-wrenching. Though again, I try to remind myself of how good they have it, and that lots of kids share bedrooms (myself having been included!) and it’s totally fine, if not actually beneficial for them in the long run.
But omg. Some days these things just seem so huge. And other days, of course, they don’t. Some days I laugh at how worried I get about such trivial things, and then I just blame pregnancy hormones. And exhaustion. And the deep fear of failing the only thing I’ve ever felt passionate about, which is mothering these sweet humans.
I could say more right now. There is a million things running through my head and this is only the tip of the iceberg. But I knew I needed to sit down and at least start somewhere. For my own sanity. But all the tiny humans are asleep and there is a million other things I need to do right now: order scholastic books, do the dishes, put laundry away, vacuum, and pack lunches. And my bed time is in like 30 minutes so I need to go at the pace of Wonder Woman. Or a cheetah.
I wonder which is fastest when it comes to trying to catch up?