A Day In the Life

This was my day today:

5 a.m. Alarm goes off. I curse alarm and when Mike says, “Why is your alarm going off at 5?” I say “Hell if I know,” and hit the off switch, readjust my boob so Dude can latch back on and fall asleep wondering ‘Why did I set my alarm for 5?’

6 a.m. Alarm goes off. Again. And suddenly I remember that I have to leave early for William’s doc appointment this morning. Hence the 5 a.m. wake up call. I hit snooze again, readjust boob again, realize Dude is waking for the day, text Mike to come get him and lay in bed in a half awake/half asleep daze trying to will my body up to start the day.

6:40 a.m. Get up and start rushing around like a crazy person. Pump the left boob since it was neglected all night, get coffee, take a shower, make lunches, fix hair, eat breakfast, remind Mike that he can’t leave for work yet because he has to take Oli to school because I have to take William to the doc, fix my hair, put on work clothes, say prayers with family, throw baby in the car with no pants on (The baby, not me. I had pants on.) despite the 55 degree weather, and take off for the doc’s office.

8:18 a.m. Arrive at doc’s office for 8:20 appointment. Score! I’m EARLY for once! Answer 5,000 questions about Dude’s development. Yes, he grabs things. No, he doesn’t have Wobble Head anymore. Yes, he’s already learning Mandarin. No, we never eat GMO’s. Whatever. “How’s the ‘sleep thing’ going?” the doc asks. Maniacal laughter from me. No further sleep questions from her. Dude has another ear infection. Tell me something I didn’t already know. Can I have my own script pad please?

9:34 a.m. Back in car. 9:34?!?!?!? Shit.

10:02 a.m. Drop Dude off at daycare. Pray like a mad woman that he doesn’t spike a fever because of the damn vaccination he got.

10:17 a.m. Arrive to work. Slide into desk while boss’s back is turned and hope he hasn’t realized that I just now got there. Breeze through a dozen e-mails before 10:30 meeting.

Work, work, work, work, work…pee…work, work, work, work, work…shovel food in face and call it ‘lunch’…work, work, work...and off to my real job again.

6:22 p.m. Pick up Dude from daycare. Head to Costco. Really, it had to be done.

6:34 p.m. Hoof it into Costco all mall-walker style. Load the cart with a year’s supply of chicken, diapers, beer, tilapia, cheese sticks, and applesauce all while dangling plastic keys in Dude’s face to keep him from clawing at my sweater (Yes, my kid has on no pants and I’m in a sweater.) and, ooh is that a pack of black bean and rice burritos? Will I eat 57 burritos before they go bad? No. Moving on.

7:07 p.m. Check out of Costco, manage to pack a moving truck’s worth of goods into my trunk, and head home.

7:18 p.m. Pull up at Circus Headquarters, unload all groceries, change clothes, convince Olivia that we will read her new book tonight at bedtime while I change out of work clothes as Mike finishes warming up dinner and mashing up an avocado for Dude, sit down, wolf down dinner while doing a short debrief on our days. It goes something like this:

“I finished the yard.” 

“What yard?” 

“Our yard.” 

“Oh, awesome. How was work?” 

“Awesome. How was your work?"

"Awesome. People cried.” 

“Great.” 

“Great.”

7:47 p.m. While Mike gets the kids in the bath, I jet off to Kroger to pick up the ear infection prescription. Run in, go through this ‘Who’s on first’ routine with the pharmacist about who my prescription drug coverage is through, try to explain very patiently to him that I never did receive a prescription drug card, call Mike to confirm this only to be told that the card is right there in the benefits folder, get that sorted out and get pharmacist opinion about a probiotic for an 8 month old since the antibiotic is going to tear up his stomach.

And here’s where I kind of lose track of time,

Get home, give Dude medicine, kiss him goodnight as Mike takes him to bed, finish washing up dinner dishes and lunch containers and baby bottles as Olivia runs circles in the kitchen and reminds me of my promise to practice her new book. I tell her to read it to me while I wash and she kind of tries but really just stops at every word to inform me that she doesn’t know the word. Mike finishes with William and takes her to her room to read as I finish all of the laundry from this weekend and finish cleaning up the kitchen. I go to tuck her in finally and she asks me to sing a song. I say no at first but then agree to one song all the while thinking about how tired I am and how I’d love to just go to bed but then what’s the point since William will be up in about 2 hours anyway and then 3-4 more times during the night.

I get Oli tucked in and come to my room to get ready for bed and to enjoy ONE moment of quiet but I turn around and there’s my sweet girl jumping into my bed begging to “snuggle” with me and promising not to be a distraction but asking a question every 35 seconds. So I tell her to go to bed because it’s late and she does but then comes back like 20 minutes later to tell me how much she was crying and can she *PLEASE* lay down with me and then she smacks her hip into the bedside table and starts sobbing so after verifying there’s no broken bone or blood, I tell her to go to bed for real this time and I can hear her sobbing in her room as I type out this crazy-busy, run-of-the-mill day.

And as I finish typing all of this up, I look back on this day and think, “Holy freaking SHIT. I’m exhausted.”

My nobler self likes to think that by working and co-managing this circus, I’m teaching my daughter that you can be a wife and a woman and have a career too and be really good at all of it.

My realistic self wonders if what I’m actually teaching her is that if you are a wife and a mom and a career woman, you will be exhausted all of the time and run around each day like a rip roaring lunatic.

And y’all, my kids aren’t even really INTO stuff yet. This actually wasn't even that crazy of a day. It wasn't that far outside of normal. I mean, what the mother crap are we gonna do when they have homework and after school activities and sports?

Hire a personal assistant? Hope and pray science has mastered cloning? I have no idea.

And by the way, did we notice that not once today did I actually SIT DOWN AND ENJOY MY KIDS?? I mean, I got tiny flecks of enjoyment during the limited time I spent with them but when my daughter was asking me to read her a book or sing her a song all I could think about was the 1 bazillion things that need to be done to keep this household running.

Should we even talk about the fact that my day was survived with the help of an incredibly supportive partner? I mean, you single mama’s out there—WHOA. You are real, live, freaking Super Women

To be honest, I’m not even sure what the point of this post is except to say that life is just BUSY. And I suspect there are some of you out there who feel the same way today and I’m not even sure it has anything to do with being a working mom although that may be some of it.

I think it just has to do with being a MOM. This job is busy, hectic, crazy, non-stop, IN-FREAKING-SANE. There are days like today where at the end I just think “No way in hell can I do that all over again tomorrow.” But I will. And so will you. We’re in this together, ladies.  

There will be a day when we look back and think “Wow. I can’t believe I survived that craziness.” I don’t know how we’ll do it or how much wine will be consumed in the process. Thankfully, Costco sells that too.     

Lost and found

Yesterday, three little happenings occurred which helped me to put into perspective something that’s been gnawing at me for several months. Until yesterday though, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and I didn’t yet have the words.

The first thing that happened was a conversation between Mike and me yesterday morning. My husband and I rarely have a chance to talk these days. Often, I’ll find myself mentioning something about so and so or such and such and he’ll be like “WHAT????” And I’ll be all, “Oh…yeah…didn’t I tell you that??? I could have sworn I told you…maybe I just said it in my head…” Between work and kids and sleep and just the basic functions of running a household, we just don’t have a lot of time to really TALK. As a result, I find that I have all of these thoughts that build up in my head and come tumbling out in what is usually a very ill-timed conversation. Like 6:30 in the morning. When we have a baby with a fever. And I’m trying to get ready for work. And Mike is trying to get The Boss Lady ready for school.

Nevertheless, it was at that very time that I felt the need to begin to put into words this great thing that has been looming in my mind for quite some time. So I blurted out, while I was packing my lunch,

“I feel like we are coworkers sometimes. I miss just getting to TALK to you. I miss getting to just breathe. And I’m starting to feel like I’m standing in the middle of a hurricane just watching all of this busyness take over everything. I feel lost and like I can’t keep up most days. And alone, I feel alone. The only place I feel like ME right now is at work because it’s the only place where I know what I’m doing or whether or not I’m appreciated.”

And my sweet husband looked at me with his big, honest, innocent eyes and said “I’m sorry. I thought that I was helping out by doing more and—

Olivia, stop scratching your vagina!”

True freaking story.

Smack dab in the middle of trying to connect with the man that I’ve built a life with, one of the tiny people we created together interrupted us AGAIN. Because even when we are feeling down or lost or harried, we still have to be parents and monitor things like vagina scratching (No, really. It’s become a chronic and embarrassing—for us, not her—issue.).

Anyway, it wasn’t some ground breaking, earth shattering conversation. I was just trying to get some things out about how I’m feeling lately and when our moment was interrupted, I felt furious and extraordinarily sad. I wanted to scream, “THAT’S IT!!! NO MORE. NO. MORE.” 

No more of what? I have no idea. No more of me being pushed aside I guess. No more of my relationship with Mike being pushed aside. No more having to be the Vagina Scratching Monitor. Just No More. 

The second thing happened in a meeting later that morning. One of the managers said “Did y’all hear about the forest fires in California?” And I realized I hadn’t heard about them so I said proudly, “Nope. But I can tell you all the members of the Paw Patrol.” Boom.

But really, inside my head, I was thinking “How did I not know about this? Where the hell have I been?” I used to listen to the news every single day. And all I know about the world right now is that Indiana sucks (or is that Illinois?), the Middle East is dangerous, and One Direction broke up. My news these days comes from a preschool Facebook page and website.

The third thing occurred on my way home from work when I heard on the radio that Malcolm Gladwell was going to be speaking at a luncheon later this month. MALCOLM. FREAKING. GLADWELL. I nearly squealed with excitement. Oh, AND he has a new book! I felt like it was Christmas in April and as soon as I walked in the door, I announced to Mike, “Malcolm Gladwell is coming! And I don’t care what it costs, I’m going to that luncheon!” And he said “You are such a nerd. I love that about you.”

And that’s when these three things collided together in my head. That’s when I realized what’s been gnawing at me for the past few months:

I’m getting lost in the hustle and bustle that is Motherhood.

Right now, my life is full of packing lunches, signing up for snack week, pumping breast milk, making sure eggs are stuffed for the school Easter party, dance class, dirty diapers, books about princesses and trains, snotty noses, windows streaked with hand prints. And, yes, it absolutely is filled with immense volumes of joy. But it is BUSY and it is fast paced and it is exhausting. And all of me is wrapped up in this but that means that other parts of me are being pushed to the side.

See, B.K. (Before Kids), I used to do things like go to bible study and take notes during church so I could absorb the message even better (See? Nerd.). I was a part of a book club for about 5 minutes which I ADORED. I remember going to the library with Mike and each of us leaving with a stack of books. I’d stay up all night or sit on the patio all day reading voraciously. I used to get a subscription to Time and I used to listen to the news every day. I used to eat at restaurants that don’t have play structures. I used to get to talk to my friends, uninterrupted, about any topic we wanted. Mike and I used to take walks around our neighborhood together and grill steaks on Sunday.

I used to be this whole person that enjoyed doing things just because they made life more interesting or helped me think about the world. I used to do things for ME.

These days, I don’t do things for me. I even thought about my monthly pedicure and how that’s become more of a maintenance item than a luxury because I simply don’t have time to take care of my feet at home. And you’d think that getting to sit down in a big comfy chair while someone massages your feet would be a huge treat but for me, it’s not. I schedule them during my lunch breaks at work so that I don’t take time away from our family during the weekend. The place I frequent had this express pedicure option and they did away with that for a lengthier, more luxurious one. I was actually UPSET about that because I don’t have the time for it. Who in the mother crap gets upset about a longer pedicure??????

I currently have a purse that is fraying at all of the seams not because I don’t want a new one or don’t know that I’m in “need” of a new one but because I don’t have time to go shopping.

And do I even want to bring up the fact that I hardly ever work out these days? I'm seriously exhausted. I haven't slept through the night in nearly 8 months. Each night I go to bed wondering what it's going to take to motivate me to get up and work out. The alarm goes off the next morning and my head is trapped in a fog of sleep deprivation and an overall feeling of mental exhaustion. 

Yeah, I know – wah, wah, wah. Poor me that I don’t get to fully enjoy my pedicure or upgrade my handbag or go to the gym. But the point is that even what were once fun things have become items on my ever growing list of “to do’s.”  

Yes, Motherhood has made my life rich in ways I didn’t even know were possible. It has pushed me and stretched me (literally and figuratively) and made me think. It blew my heart right open and though this seems contrary to what I’ve just written, it’s made me more ME.

But in all of that stretching and growing, some other parts of me have run out of space in my life. Motherhood is a whirlwind of dirty diapers and hissy fits and giggles and smiles and hugs and it is easy to get lost in all of that. Sometimes that’s a great thing. And sometimes I feel like I’m standing there, watching all of this busyness happen and wondering where I went. All while being trapped in a fat suit.

When I bought that ticket to see Malcolm Gladwell, at first I could not understand why I was SO excited. Then I realized that this is the first thing I’ve done for myself that is reminiscent of my B.K. life in a VERY long time. This luncheon has nothing to do with my children—or any children really. This is just about me going to geek out about a writer whose books I used to pour over again and again because I had all the time in the world to do it.  

Look, I get it. I have small kids right now and this day to day sprint is just how it is. I get that. Really, I do. I know that there will be a day when I have ample time to drink coffee or wine on the patio as I dive into a book. I’ll be able to listen to the news in the car instead of the Frozen soundtrack. I’ll be able to take notes in church. When that day comes, the complete psychosis that is Parenthood will set in and I’ll miss THESE days. I know that.

But I can’t let myself get lost in this journey either. Even Mike said it—he loves my nerdiness. But it’s something I put on the back burner for everything else in our life. If I’m going to continue to be a good mom and wife (or at least a functioning one), every now and then I have to throw my B.K. self a little love. She’s there, waiting patiently in the wings. She’s there with her notebooks and news stories ready for the day when the school Easter egg hunt is no longer a pressing matter. And she’s excited about that luncheon later this month. Excited that it’s just for her and no one else. Excited to be found again and brought out into the world, if only for a couple of hours for lunch.