Last weekend I took R and J to Texas to visit my parents. Jordan stayed home for a couple different reasons, and I drove by myself three hours with both kids. It went well overall, and both of them slept most of the way. There was one panic moment when I heard R say, "Mama, I beed," and I looked in the rearview mirror and saw blood dripping from her nose. She has nosebleeds sometimes, but I was in the middle of traffic on the highway and there wasn't any place to pull over. I reached in her backpack, which was in the passenger seat, and grabbed the first thing I could to give her to hold to her nose, which happened to be a pair of her (clean) underwear. (I keep underwear in her backpack now because we're potty training. I can't believe my baby is this big.)
I finally was able to pull over in a picnic area and cleaned her up, and the rest of the drive was uneventful. I always make sure to drive carefully once I get to their town, because I've gotten pulled over twice mere blocks from my parents' house, once for rolling a stop sign and once for going 23 in a 20 school speed zone. Clearly I shouldn't be given keys to motor vehicles with that kind of reckless driving.
We were in Texas Thursday to Sunday, and it was really nice to have some extended time to hang out with my family. They love my kids so much, and it makes me so happy. On Saturday I had what I'm calling a Crash Day. I woke up with the worst headache I've ever had--not quite migraine status but definitely worse than your average headache. I ended up sleeping the majority of the day and basically only woke up to eat, feed J, and I had one outing around lunchtime to visit a friend of mine from Saint Louis who happened to be in Dallas on business. My dad drove me to meet her because my mom didn't think I was fit to drive.
I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to make it home, but thankfully after taking about 6 naps on Saturday, I woke up on Sunday feeling almost back to normal. It was the strangest thing, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, but my mom just said she thought I needed to rest. "For the past month," she said, "you have added a full-time job to your schedule and taken away nothing at all. And,"--then there was a dramatic pause--"you've stopped taking naps." I told her I don't have time to take naps anymore, and she just stared at me. "You're exhausted. I want you to start taking naps again."
I've been thinking a lot this week about my schedule and our routine. I've gotten a few comments about how well I seem to be doing adjusting to two kids, and while I do feel like going from 1 kid to 2 has been so much easier than going from 0 to 1, my crash day has given me a lot to consider about how well I'm actually doing. The truth is, I'm still adjusting. I forget sometimes that I just had a baby three months ago, and that's a lifetime when you're awake yet again at 3am, but really it's nothing.
I'm not happy with the skin flab on my stomach, and although I can fit into most of my pre-pregnancy pants, I'm self-conscious about how most shirts fall on my stomach and end up rotating the same two shirts that I feel don't look terrible. I'm frustrated that I want to go running but I literally don't have the time right now unless I want to workout at an absurd hour like 4am, which I really just don't. I don't like that I haven't read a book in about five months. And I really, really don't like that I haven't been diligent about committing to a daily quiet time to pray and read my Bible.
I am a firm believer that people do have time to do a lot of the things they say they don't have time for. But sometimes it feels like I honestly, truly don't have to time to do all the things I want do to if I also want to sleep at least a few hours at night.
People talk a lot about giving themselves grace, but if I'm honest, I'm really bad at it. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I can be pretty hard on myself. I try not to compare, I really do. But I see other moms with babies the same age as mine getting workouts in before their kids are awake or moms with more kids than me getting the family up and to church on time, and I just feel a bit defeated. Which sounds so silly and dumb. I KNOW.
I think being back at work has been harder and more tiring for me than I realized until I slept 90% of Saturday while my parents watched my kids. And Jordan helps. He's an awesome dad and husband. I don't want to act like I'm a single parent over here. But guys, I am terrible at delegating. I'm terrible at letting people help me. That's something I'm constantly working on.
Anyway. What is the point of this post?
I have no idea. Except to say that I promised my mom I'd start taking naps again, and I have taken an afternoon nap every day this week so far, and it has felt amazing. Also, I took both my kids on a road trip to Texas for the weekend and survived (barely).
I'm trying to nail down some specific goals moving forward that will allow me to feel like I'm able to keep more things in my life without wearing myself thin. Here are a few I've got so far: I want to join a gym and go 2 nights a week, I'm thinking Tuesdays so I can watch This Is Us while I run on the treadmill. I want to be in bed by 10:00 at the latest every night (my mom is going to call me and say that's too late, but again, that's at the latest. Ideally 9:00). I want to be intentional about carving out time for more naps. I want to establish chores that Jordan and I each have.
And I really do want to give myself grace, so I'll have to work on that too.
So, um.... I intended to share some pictures from what we've been up to lately, and this mess came out. I don't even know.
Hope you all have a great weekend! Try to take a nap. My mom said so.