Last night, I had another post written in this space. It was about how difficult it is to have three children, especially now that the three children want and really need different things out of our days. It was all typed up and spell-checked and hundreds of words.
Then, the baby woke up. I hit "save draft" and went to bed. It was around midnight, after all.
Reading it today, I wonder if something moved me to save it as a draft rather than hit "publish." It was whiny and self-aggrandizing, two of my many writing flaws, but mostly it was just obvious. Kids are hard; more kids are harder; lots of young kids are particularly hard. (I hope. Oh my word, I hope.)
I've been in this funk lately, in which I assume an attitude of "oh, woe is me! my life is so hard!" and then proceed to make Kevin and/or the children's life kind of miserable, too, mostly by doing some stomping around and pointed sighing and, in the darker of moments, tossing aside things and crying. (Oh. And shouting. There was some shouting, too.) They've been tremendously good sports about it, but the pity party act had been wearing thin for a few weeks, and suddenly I was the only one left with my party hat on.
So I've been forcing myself to be happier. Yes, forcing. Giggling when something inconvenient happens (Thomas spills the breakfast smoothie all over everything); extra kisses and cuddles and pauses in our action when someone's hurt (every three seconds these days); and generous accommodating the wishes of the children (when my instinct is to say "no," simply because its so much effort to do X, or Y, or Z ).
Something moved inside me at church this Sunday - words of a prayer I hear every single week resonated with me as if they'd been spoken for the first time, or through a loud speaker - and I'm hopeful I won't have to force this happiness much longer. Which isn't to say I'm not happy, it's just that the accumulated effect of four years of not being able to finish 90 percent of what I start, of having my productivity in all aspects of life decimated, has finally caught up with me.
And it's here that my change is made: didn't I freely accept this life: to have these three small children, to stay at home with them every day? Yes, yes I did. Not only did I accept it, I planned it. (Ahem. With a little help.) I couldn't see far enough down this path to realize just how time-consuming the day-to-day is, but the opportunity for different choices is long gone.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'd like to point out that this morning wasn't a great morning, so obviously I'm still a work in progress.
the original post was all about how this day was crazy difficult, with a rained-out playground playdate and a visit to a new library and then a trip to the indoor playground, and how I had to keep this little boy from being squashed by the older children, and how I was certain Lucy was being inducted into a Disney Princess coven by the older girls who'd taken her under her wing, and how I was frightened that an older boy would introduce Peter to the world of guns or something equally as horrible, and how I might just need to get a grip as a mother and let go just a little
so as you can see, I've clearly not lost the temptation toward whining nor self-aggrandizing
but I'm also not quite ready to let go
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