A Few Things

Sometimes it's easy to get carried away with parenting. So you have to take a step back and edit. Kind of like when you decorate a mantle. Throw your big ideas out there and then step back and remove all the excess and unnecessary.

School is around the corner. Guess how ready I am? None. Zero. Zilch.  And Jason is wanting us to go with him on his next trip which means I will have half a day to be ready for our first day of CC.  Nothing like adding a little stress to your first week. We aren't looking to have a smooth start to the year. But if I've learned one thing, it's that the year will still happen and everything will eventually fall in to place.

Jason comes home today. He's been gone a month so we are all very excited. He's never even seen our new home (as our home/he saw it twice as an empty building) and the girls are anxious to show him around the place and point out all their favorite spots. And I know he's anxious to catch up on sleep and family time. This traveling is rough on him because we can't treat his Lymes the way we need to and after this long of a stint, he's really feeling it.

It was 90 degrees at 8:45 this morning. What?!

13 versus 31

The beginning of every school year was so new and exciting. The smell of the books and the pencils surged through my body and got the learnin' blood pumping throughout my veins. After a few months of school, the excitement went away and I just did my daily routine without the energy that I originally possessed. It became monotonous and a bit tedious at times. The routine was boring and I couldn't wait for it to be over and the summer break to start. I needed a change.

Well, parenting and housekeeping was the same way for me....except it was also just the opposite.

At first, it was new and exciting.

Of course, I became pregnant two and a half weeks into our marriage, and as it typically goes, at six weeks gestation I became one big ball of throw up. That means Jason and I had eight and a half weeks of newly-wedded bliss, and then I consistently threw up every hour or so (on a good day) for seven and a half months. (Elaina was due the first week of November but I delivered her on September 25th.)  And then three months later I was expecting Claire and we did that all over again.

But we'll skip ahead to where Claire had been born and I could function as a human being again.

Like I said, at first it was new and exciting, but then it was just plain hard. It seemed like all the other moms and wives my age had it down pat. Their houses looked clean. Their laundry didn't appear to be piled seven feet high. I imagined that they even went to bed with the supper dishes washed and put away. When they went out in public, they didn't look like they hadn't slept in two years and they had obviously taken the time to not only put on clothes, but clothes that were stylish, clean and smelled normal. They had on makeup.  I remember reaching a point where I realized my wearing makeup was just wasting money. It wasn't making any difference in my appearance.

I loved taking care of my house and my family but everything seemed so hard to accomplish. Each task had to be thought out and was somewhat of an ordeal to accomplish. But after three long years,

very long years,

all the cleaning of toilets, the washing of faces, the folding of laundry became monotonous. They were just part of a routine. I didn't even really think about it. It didn't feel like something I was doing, it was just the normal. And for me, that's when being a wife and mama became wonderful. I felt like a person again. I had been living this life long enough that to not do it felt strange.  And oddly enough, that third year was when I had Eily. And Claire was one. And Elaina was two.  By all accounts, it should be the year I look back and just remember a blur. But when I think back, I remember feeling calm, I remember  finally being able to take deep breaths again, I remember going to bed and leaving a clean kitchen behind me.

Of course, now the girls are older and are very helpful so pulling off a clean house is not near as challenging as it used to be. But it's nice that this daily living that used to be so exhausting and overwhelming is my normal routine. And I don't want a break from it. I don't want "summer" to start. I want to keep My Four here with me. Always. Except I wouldn't really wish that on them. I really want them to have a chance to feel overwhelmed and then to find their groove. I want them to be a new wife, and then a new mama. And then a mama again.

But I want them to get there slowly.



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This may not have flowed like I wanted it to. I'm not a writer. I'm just a mom trying to type out my thoughts so that years from now I can recall how it felt to be in my thirties with a household of little girlies and a rising artist husband on the cusp of his career. Just pretend like you get it. Thanks.

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And you new wives and mamas, you just hang in there. It may take a while but you'll get there. Have faith and keep trucking ahead. 

Thoughts

I have hit rock bottom as far as energy is concerned. I think the baby is having a growth spurt and maybe that's why. Last night and again this morning there has been more movement and limbs poking up and out than ever before. I think baby is running out of room and wanting to let me know that it doesn't want to be in my tummy forever.

I did go outside and play with the girls in the snow yesterday. That was really fun. We made a snowman that was pretty awesome and then Charlie knocked him down flat. We also made snow angels and jumped on the snowy trampoline. Guess what? Getting up from a snow angel position when you are The Walrus proves to be difficult.

It has been on my mind a lot lately that Elaina truly starts school in August. I'm a little intimidated and excited all at the same time. It's not the teaching that intimidates me but establishing school as a daily, first-thing-we-do-each-day habit. That is something that I have started to implement but not to a very strict degree. If we have a good morning, we do school. If it's low energy, we don't. That won't be acceptable next year. First grade is not a cheating year. I can't just cancel school to go meet Nanny in Fort Smith. While I am excited to get into this phase of life I'm a little sad to give up the freedom that we have had for almost 6 years.

And another one that will probably not come across as I want it to.

Sometimes I miss ignorance. While I was showering this morning I was trying to decide if I should use the paraben-free Arbonne body wash or use the paraben-full Bath and Body Works body wash that I got for free with coupons a while back. I can't stand to not finish a bottle but I have a hard time using it now that I know what is in it. I don't want to be unaware of things that are harmful to my body but for some reason, this morning I just wanted to forget. I wanted to go back to college where I loved the body products that I was using b/c I really felt like I was benefiting my body and doing what was best for it. (I don't have a clue what those things were now but I'm sure they were full of parabens.) I'm not saying that I don't want to know or don't care. I'm glad that I'm learning about what is best for me but for some reason, unexplainable even to myself, I guess I wanted to be ignorant. To feel innocent. To feel young. And somehow, in that moment, all those things were related.

See? That made no sense, did it?
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Elaina just walked in here and said, "Mommy? Don't you want to start calling me something else because I'm bored of Elaina."

Me: "Like Twig?" (That's what Jason calls her all the time.)

Her: "No... Maybe you could call me Cutie. Cutie Elaina. I like that."

Never Mind

There is one good thing about the girls watching movies. They pick up cute sayings. Laina just told me that  there were "plenty more"clips in the drawer. I never say plenty more and it just had the cutest way of coming out of her mouth. Of course, the non cute sayings cancel out the cute sayings so I guess this post is really null and void.