As I lay in bed at 4:30am my mind won't shut down. It seems to be a problem I have more and more. Den has rolled out of bed and I continue to lay there and think about starting my day, and trying to envision how it should go. I stress the word "should" because it rarely goes as planned. I have all these lofty dreams of getting this done and this accomplished only to see that things take longer than they should or other things just come up. I don't know; there is a bit of a lazy streak in me lately too, if I want to be completely honest. Often, I start my day feeling a little defeated before I have even begun; to which I acknowledge is the worst attitude to have. *sigh*
I am in transition mode; whatever that REALLY means. I am experiencing emotions that I haven't felt before in motherhood. After all, this is my first time through it and, often, I am filled with so much self doubt about HOW I am doing it that I have an inner warfare. Where is the book on me, my children and mothering anyway? I don't want to read one that is full of all the perfect answers with all the perfect children and how the mom ALWAYS did the right thing, but I also don't want to read the one that is all about mistakes either. Ohhhh I don't know what I want, or is it that I know what I want and it is just not achievable? Well you are experiencing just a very short journey of my inner war.....welcome! hehehe
So let's start with the basics. I have two families growing in this house and I feel out of balance with it. My teenagers want to have freedom and no commitments. My little ones are all consumed with mommy, and I find all I want to do is escape with Den somewhere at the end of everyday. I want to let my house just go and not put so much pressure on myself and boys to keep it running tip top, but I already feel like I have lowered the bar so much from how I was raised that I often feel discouraged. Yes, I know I have six boys, and I was raised in a house with two girls. I completely, logically, get that, but it doesn't change my point of view. I still see what I see, and I still can't find what I need to find on any given day. Often times I am a drill sergeant making the boys do things this way or that way just so we can find pairs of shoes on a Sunday morning, and then other days I feel like I was too hard on everyone and everything goes to pot and we can't find a single pair of shoes on Sunday. It seems to me that there isn't a happy medium. Believe you me...I AM TRYING TO FIND IT!
When I lay in bed at 5am I picture going downstairs and cleaning the house, keeping up with my quadrillion loads of laundry, having to go in to the closet (THE CLOSET) to put them away, which translates to an hour of reorganzing and cleaning it. The dresser in the little boys' bedroom is no better. The drawers are so chug full of clothes that the drawers won't close half the time. When I go through to find a pair of Sesame Street underwear for Roman I find a hodge podge of anything and anyone's clothes in them. So frustrating! Half the time I just have to hold my breath and literally talk myself out of what I just saw and move on to the next task that NEEDS to be done at that time, like putting the Sesame Street underwear ON the innocent little three year old that is standing beside me with a towel wrapped around his miniature body. One thing at a time...I have to remind myself. Just getting the little boys fed, bathed, dressed and content long enough to move on to something else is a full time job some days; nevermind the mile long list of outside duties that are long overdue.
Then my older boys feel over worked and under paid. Oh the guilt that ensues on any given day. It is exhausting. I want to just say don't worry about the things that NEED to be done, but I can't. I can't live that way and in the long run no one wants to either. So I am trying to teach them responsibility, organization, routine and yet trying to take care of all their needs and wants to the best of my ability; which seems to be lacking in my mind. I guess I am a bit on overload.
I hesitate to blog, but at the same time what is this blog really about if not to share this journey with myself or my children later. I will be taking off the comments for now. I just don't want this to be about anything right now, but a journal. I'm sure you will all understand. =)
