March. 1 and then 2....all the way here from December. How did it get like this? Each day bleeds into the next and before I know it they become weeks, months.
I can't keep my house clean. I can't make dinner on time. I can't seem to hold things in order without something spilling out and making a mess.
I was not born with the gift of organization. I wasn't exactly born a creative type either. I seem to stand in the carpeted hallway somewhere between the rooms of orderly and hot mess. And I don't feel like I particularly belong in either. I hold my bags on either side of me....carrying weight. The weight of the day. The weight of this week. The weight of what might happen if I don't choose quickly which room I want to stay in. For the night. For what remains of winter. For until my kids grow up and move away from me.
And that's it. My kids will grow up. "Babies don't keep."
This is why I write things out....to show myself what I can't see otherwise.
I'm more guilty than not of the I can't...the not right now....the I'm busy. Too busy trying to tidy up the inside to go and enjoy the outside. That could be a metaphor for living too deeply inside my brain and not moving my body so as to achieve a greater sense of whole. I won't get there by just thinking about it.
I won't make memories with my children, my beautiful children, by lamenting the time I spend doing laundry instead of playing ball or watching the same skateboard trick over and over or holding a chubby baby in my lap and watching her eyes light up as she babbles and coos in her just found voice.
My boy and I....we're struggling. Struggling to find our new place now that we have a new person. "I'm mad at you but I don't know why." I'm just amazed at his six year old ability to even articulate that. That hard place. That anger at something unknown. The what's broken.
He was sick when she was born. I wasn't there. It was his first taste of the "step aside, please....coming through." Sicker than he had ever been.
These hurts matter. And I didn't make it right. I'm trying. Maybe not hard enough. Maybe there's too much laundry. Maybe the floor's dirty. Maybe someone will stop by and see. Maybe I shouldn't care.
"Babies don't keep.".....
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Ouuuuuuuuch!!! Hang in there Little W and L, hang in there. It's SO different adding a baby to a well established family unit. You've got your first baby's emotions to carry on top of your own. It'll get easier when she's just a little older and can interact more with him, when he can really see that he impacts her and that she loves him. He'll be able to have more responsibility with her and that gives a sense of ... ownership? I ached for Milly but that hard phase doesn't feel like it lasted too long. However, the laundry issue and facing the fact that these people need food ALL THE TIME never seems to get better:) But goodness are they ever worth it. xoxo ~ Anna Eb
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