These Days of My Life

It’s 6am and my alarm goes off.

Actually, it’s the alarm before the alarm.

The one that isn’t my true wake up time but is necessary to prep me for the real alarm. The real wake up time.

Anyone else do that?

I turn the alarm off in my sleep and what feels like seconds later, my real alarm goes off. It’s 6:20am and I have ten minutes to wake up, get dressed-ish, pour my first cup of coffee and then get the boys up for school.

Everett is in first grade and Jack is in pre-school.

Most likely, I will have been up previously, feeding Claire around 4am or 4:30…back to sleep shortly after and just into a deep enough sleep that waking up is HARD. I don’t want to. Maybe ten more minutes?

But okay…I get up.

The coffee pot automatically brews before my alarm goes off and the life-giving aroma perks me up just enough to swing my legs over the bed and begin my day.

It’s 9:30am and I’ve just gotten home from taking Jack to preschool, it’s about an hour away so after seeing Everett on the bus for his school, Claire, Jack and I head to preschool. After dropping Jack off, Claire and I head back home.

She is happy from napping in the car but wants to eat so as soon as we get inside the house, that’s what we do. I’m also starving. But you know how it goes, babies first!

I settle her down on the floor with some toys and grab something to eat from the kitchen. Glancing at the clock I see I have less than four hours until I need to head back to pick up Jack.

What to do with all that time…let me consult the to do list I so energetically made the night before!

Let’s see.

Mop floors. Clean bathrooms. Put laundry away. Dishes. Start more laundry. 30 minutes of work. Prep UPS returns. Work out….and then my list looks more like a brain dump of all the things I’ve been trying to accomplish for what feels like forever.

Finish painting the cabinet doors in the laundry room. Paint new trim. Reorganize pantry. Reorganize downstairs. Clean out playroom. Order this. Do that. Call this person and that person. Reorganize filing cabinet. The list goes on.

Who did I think I was when I created this list? WONDER WOMAN???

I begin to feel anxious as I know the clock is ticking and I literally need 457 hours to accomplish everything on my list.

I now have three. Three hours.

I decide to do the dishes. I literally can’t think when my kitchen is a mess.

A few minutes in, Claire is crying. She needs a diaper change.

After little miss is clean and happy, I put her in her bouncer and turn back to the dishes.

I’m ten minutes in and moving on to the laundry when she is no longer happy in her bouncer. In between trips to the laundry room and while I tidy up the house, I am a dancing, singing, entertaining delight as I try and get a few more minutes out of her.

Her giggles lessen and I see her rubbing her eyes. It’s nap time.

I get her down for a nap and my stomach growls. It’s somehow past noon and I need to eat and get more things done. I have one hour. Cool.

I grab something…maybe a banana, maybe a granola bar…maybe an Oreo…and look at my list.

That was a bad idea. Now I feel overwhelmed.

I pick one thing on the list and get to it.

The hour flies by, I wake Claire, let her nurse for a few minutes and then hit the road. My house quite messy still. But at least the dishes are done.

It’s 5:30pm and I’m simultaneously cooking dinner and helping Everett with his homework. Craig has Jack and Claire outside doing something.

Jack comes in crying because he fell down. I scoop him up and kiss the knee that he hurt, wipe away the tears and snot running all over his face. Just not quite fast enough before he could get it all over my shirt. Oh well, Claire spit up on me earlier so I might as well wear snot and drool, too. I’ll go change my shirt after I set him down, anyway.

Claire is getting hungry and tired, but I need to get dinner done. The boys are getting loud and rambunctious. Craig and I try to have a conversation but it’s pointless to talk with three kids all needing something. We smile at each other over their heads in some kind of wordless language that we seemed to have developed since becoming parents.

We sit down to eat. We all hold hands around the table while Craig leads us in prayer. I peak my eyes open and marvel at my family.

The house is a wreck, I’m still wearing the spit up-drool-snot shirt and Claire is yanking on my hair with glee, but holy cow I am happy.

We say amen and eat. Kind of. Jack won’t sit still so he is off and running. I scarf my food so that I can go feed Claire and get her to bed. Everett and Craig are left at the table.

It’s 7pm and I’ve got Claire cradled in my arms, she’s sleepy, has a full belly and is all snuggly in her pajamas, ready for bed. I want to hold her for a while, but I also need to get her to bed and move on to my next task.

She’s so sweet and happy. I kiss her fingers as they play with my nose. I turn off the light, sing to her and lay her down for bed.

I leave her room and see the boys coming from the bath, naked and dripping with water, towels hung over their backs. They are headed this way. And uh oh.

They are JUMPING this way. Loud jumping. Wake the baby, shake the house jumping.

I bolt to them. Quiet bolting, of course.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Stop that. Your sister is asleep.

Craig and I will then repeat this phrase twenty times before lights out.

It’s 7:15pm. The phone rings.

It’s my dad. He asks what I’m doing.

I’m watching the boys wrestle, am trying to get the dishes done and have just given another five-minute warning for bed.

I hear him chuckle. He says I sound busy, and he can let me go. I say okay.

I can tell just by his voice that he recalls the days I am now living. Little kids, loud kids, busy kids.

It’s 7:45pm and the boys are finally in bed, lights off and I think I am done meeting their last-minute bedtime needs. Everyone is properly hydrated and has used the potty quite sufficiently. The kitchen has been closed for snacks and enough books have been read.

I walk out from their hallway and stare at the kitchen I only half cleaned earlier. Dishes wait for me.

Lunches need to be made.

A few straggler toys got left out from the pre-bedtime clean up. There are couch pillows under the dining room table, something sticky on the floor and at least four loads of laundry piled up on my bed, waiting for me ever since I threw them there and told myself I’d fold them long before this moment I’m standing in now.

Dishes first. Lunches second. Those straggler toys, those pillows third….whatever that sticky stuff is on the floor…

It’s now 9pm and I’m tired. Mostly mentally tired. Emotionally exhausted from a day of “momming.”

I stare at my list. I could go workout right now. I have worked out at this time before but I’m so mentally and physically exhausted that I can’t bring myself to even get excited about it.

I could sit and fold laundry. I could pick up the rest of the house, vacuum, sweep and mop, get at least one bathroom clean before Craig goes to bed.

But oh shoot. I just remembered that I HAVE to do something for work that I forgot to finish earlier. I go to my laptop and get to work.

It’s 9:30pm and I’m closing my laptop. What now.

I tuck my to do list neatly inside my planner, so I don’t see it again until tomorrow and go take a shower.

Minutes later I curl up on the couch with a book. I must do something for myself. I’m not sure how to get all the things done on my to do list, keep up with laundry, keep the house as clean as I prefer or get any of those bigger projects done in a timely manner, but I do know this, I matter too.

My hobbies, my interests, my dreams and my goals, they all matter too.

It’s just hard to fit them in these days. But it’s important that I do.

So, while my house becomes peacefully quiet and the people I love the most sleep soundly, I enjoy some time for myself. Because as soon as I shut my eyes for sleep, the next day will come, and I will be at it all over again.

It’s 10:30pm and I’m tired. I want to keep reading and keep enjoying the silence of the house, but I know I should go to bed.

I check all the doors. We have seven doors, so it takes a while. I then start turning off lights.

Before heading to bed, I check on my children.

Everett is tucked neatly into his bed. I remember the days when I’d pick him up from his crib after he’d fallen asleep and rock him for a while. I wish I could have little Everett in my arms again right now. Instead, I smooth his cheek and silently pray over him.

Moving on to my wild little man, Jack, I see he has sprawled in his bed. With one blanket wrapped around his torso. Eyeing the blanket, I can imagine him waking up in the middle of the night, crying from being too warm or too uncomfortable, because it has happened before. I gently unwrap him and he immediately curls up more comfortably. I drape the blanket over him and am satisfied that he will sleep much better. I say my prayer over him and leave their room.

Next is sweet Claire. She’s sleeping well these days, but I’ll likely be up with her at least by 4am so I give her a quick check and pray over my baby girl before soundlessly leaving her room.

The days are long. Sometimes the nights are long, too.

The days go by slow, sometimes they go by fast.

The days are filled with so much that sometimes I can barely make it through the day without feeling physically, mentally and emotionally overstimulated by my children.

But as a mom of three now I have grown, changed and matured. I now feel a solid, unshakeable confidence. I know when to take a break when I need it. I know when to ask for help. I know when to give, when to take, when to bend and how to not break.

The long days don’t seem quite as long as they used to. The challenging days of having toddlers and babies behind me now that I have boys in school and just one baby in tow.

These days I feel like I’m inching my way towards something new, something fun, something with a bit more freedom, a bit more flexibility and fun. As my kids grow, I sometimes miss the days we’ve left behind. Ahem, some of them. I miss some of the days. Not all.

But the kids are growing, and we are entering new, exciting chapters of life with them. The days have piled up and here we are, on the precipice of a new normal.

And while I look forward to the days to come with hope and excitement, I’m seasoned enough to stop and look around at today. And love today for what it is, too.

These days of my life are precious, they are fleeting. They are imprinting on my heart, becoming the memories I will cling to long after these days have gone.

When I am old and my arms no longer ache from the weight of holding babies, I hope that my heart still feels the weight of them.

When I wake up to a clean house and go to bed with a clean house, I hope that I someday stumble upon a Lego or a Barbie shoe, left from years before and just waiting for me to find one day.

Because one day these days will fade, and new days will take their place. This season will fully pass and a new one will be upon me.

Lord, give me strength when it’s time to let go of these days. These beautiful, consuming, exhausting, happy days.