Skip to main content

off balance

the letter "h"!
sleepy buddha
last night, john proved to me again what an awesome kid he is. he wanted to have a dance party in the living room and asked daddy to put on the radio.

daddy did, to a pop/top 40 type station. i can't remember what song it was, but john said, "no, daddy, a rock and ROLL dance."

so daddy changed. next station was a country song. "no, daddy. rock and ROLL!"

finally, daddy landed on an alt rock station. "that's it daddy! rock and roll, rock and roll ..." (insert cute hip/butt wiggle here).

what song had my kiddo rockin' and rollin'? 

"under the bridge," by red hot chili peppers. that, friends, THAT, is my child.

meantime charlie was sitting in his seat just smiling and laughing at big brother's antics.

*  *  *

and i needed that. i needed to be reminded how amazing my children are, because it was a rough afternoon before that. it started with a tough meeting with an employee at work, followed by trips to not one but two grocery stores on the way home. and in the car, i made the "mistake" of chatting on the phone with two friends who needed me rather than interacting with john, so he was on terrible behavior most of the way. and it carried over into the grocery stores where he whined and fussed and didn't listen and charlie got wound up and i was that mom walking thru walmart biting back tears as i pushed a cart of crying wiggling boys. (how can two small boys seem to be SO MUCH boy?)

and i know, we all have those days. and i know a lot of it is probably still a learning curve for me as a mom of two instead of one, as a working mom again, as a mom of a nearly four year old instead of a two year old, etc. i know, we're all still (and always will be) figuring out what to do.

but i struggle so much, because i want my kids to always know they are the center of my heart -- but they cannot at every moment be the center of my attention. and i want to make the most of my time with those amazing boys of mine (husband included), but sometimes i want to talk to a girlfriend who is having a tough time with her own family, or another who is in early labor with her first son. 

yesterday, i felt very much like i failed at the balance.

i didn't so much balance as teeter, wobble, fall, stumble, yell, cry, and make little ones cry.

and i know, today is a new day, blah de blah de blah. i know, we all have off days and all that garbage. i KNOW that. 

sooooo ... what's my strategy? i need a strategy.
  1. focus on rock and roll and giggles instead of yelling and carseat kicking
  2. take a deep breath. stretch. close my eyes. remember the peace i found just a week ago when i took the martin luther king holiday to stay in bed and play with charlie all day. (i should write a post about that. maybe tomorrow.)
  3. put into place my plan to take a day off once a month or so to spend time with one of the boys one-on-one -- again, including my husband.
mamas, how do you do it? how do you balance your life -- even if you don't work out of the home, how do you keep it together when you're losing it a little? and how do you recover after you lose it?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

on lullabies

i am not a singer. if you've sat behind me in church, you know this to be true. (and i'm sorry.) a musician, yes. a singer no. and yet i find myself singing to john almost nonstop. and the beauty is, he seems to actually like it! (there's no accounting for taste. he also thinks i'm the most beautiful woman in the world. i'm no ogre, but i'm certainly not winning any beauty contests outside of my son's brain!) and actually, i've written some lullabies for john that are pretty nice. and it made me think: did your parents sing to you? do you remember what they sang, and better yet, if you have kids, do you sing the same songs to them? reply in the comments!

pull up your big boy undies

"what time is it? mommy? what oclock?" john's teacher told me something amazing today. "you should bring me some big boy undies," she said, "i haven't changed john in weeks." it seems that at school, since they check in with him periodically to see if he has to potty, and since his very smart teacher has noticed his (very regular) bowel movement schedule, john is potty trained. at 9am at 2pm, she plops him on the toilet. he might sit for 20 minutes, reading a book. when she checks on him, he says, "i just poo-pooin', miss meka." and when he's done, he's good and done. we're not quite that far along at home, but tonight we go shopping for big boy undies. and i'm sure we'll have a few accidents, but that's just a part of the process ... and soon my little boo will be in big boy undies full time. and ... it's a great time for him to be out of diapers. because good lord willing and the creek ...

i'm furberizing my baby

ok, let's get this straight right off the bat: i don't know if i am literally following dr. furber's methods of sleep training. there are so many versions out there. but saying we're furberizing john is WAY more fun than saying that i'm letting him cry his little lungs out in an attempt to teach him to sleep on his own. it's night two of our efforts. he went right to sleep last night, which was great. and he slept for 5.25 hours (!!!!) before waking up at 2:30 a.m. when he woke up crying, i let him cry for 5 minutes before going in to soothe him. (the soothing barely works at all, by the way, but it's what i'm supposed to do ...) then i let him cry for 10 more minutes before going in to soothe him again. next on the agenda was a 15 minute stretch of crying - but he fell asleep after 8 minutes. so a sum total of 22 minutes of crying. not too bad for night two. i've heard night three can be the worst ... so we'll hold on to our hats tonight. mean...