There are two types of days. I wish blogger would let me draw a big venn diagram to compare and contrast the two...I'm sure I have a program that would, like maybe Powerpoint, but today is the kind of day where I'm too lazy to find out.
Type 1:
I wake up feeling tired. No matter how well my baby sleeps. I'm tired. The thought of my husband going to work horrifies me. I do anything I can to keep him home. You know, sweetly gaze into his eyes when he comes to our room to kiss me goodbye. Enlist long, lingering kisses with a promise of something more maybe sometime in this lifetime. Hug him real tight and close my eyes and wish work would just disappear. Resort to full on begging and refusing to let go of his arm when those don't work. And then he leaves. And I'm alone with a little army I created myself.
And the rest of the day follows suit. My kids are grouchy and I try everything I can short of giving them candy for all 3 meals and not making them use the bathroom. They drag all the toys out and I don't have the energy to care, let alone pick them up. The house is a disaster and all I do all day is change diapers, nurse a very chunky boy, step carefully amidst the legos and princess figurines, peel the toddler off the baby and the counter and the table, and then throw something really easy together for dinner.
Scott gets home (if he comes home before bedtime, which is getting more rare) and I apologize profusely that I'm not perfect. He tells me I'm amazing and beautiful and that I'm doing better than I'll ever know. I don't believe him. We eat dinner, put the kids to bed, and collapse in two adult-sized heaps. I utter a quick prayer that tomorrow will be better than today. Somehow.
Type 2:
I wake up feeling tired. No matter how well my baby sleeps. The thought of my husband going to work horrifies me. I do anything I can to keep him home. You know, sweetly gaze into his eyes when he comes to our room to kiss me goodbye. Enlist long, lingering kisses with a promise of something more maybe sometime in this lifetime. Hug him real tight and close my eyes and wish work would just disappear. Resort to full on begging and refusing to let go of his arm when those don't work. And then he leaves. And I'm alone with a little army I created myself.
I give myself a pep talk. You're a real mom now. You can do this. Your kids need you and your husband needs you and your life is amazing. Get over yourself and do something with your day! Yesterday was rough, so make today better. It's only uphill from here. You're a daughter of God and this is what you were meant to do. So get up and do it!
And then I crawl out of bed and do something. Sometimes I shower, sometimes I don't get there. Sometimes the house is clean, sometimes it's not. Most times one room is spotless while the rest of the house is destroyed. But I feel good about what I accomplish. I play with my kids and we learn something new. We smile and laugh and I'm patient with the peed pants and spilled what-have-you's. I make a decent meal, complete with a vegetable.
Scott gets home and I smile and kiss him and he tells me I'm amazing and beautiful and acknowledges any tiny thing I managed to get done. I believe him. We eat dinner and play and read and sing. We put the kids to bed together and then we talk. We laugh and we play with our baby and we fall in love again. We pray together. And then we fall into adult sized heaps and sleep.
And, I am happy to report...most of my days are type 2 days. I've been pretty proud of myself lately. After Grace my hormones were crazy and I was crazy and things were crazy. The transition was nuts. This time, though, is different (thank goodness). My house is messy sometimes. But it's not dirty. My kitchen is predominately clean. My kids are getting more obedient. I'm getting more patient. I'm so in love with my baby it's ridiculous. We all live in pajamas and it's glorious. I love my husband and he loves me.
Today started as a type 1 day. But as I sat down to write this blog post I realized that, while it's been a hard week, I have been pretty blessed. So maybe I should invent a type 3 day. The type where it starts rough and my attitude sucks (sorry for the language mom) but then I get over myself and get to work. Because my life rocks.
I saw this quote online today and it's so true. Words to live by.
"Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful."
-LR Knost
So I've decided. There isn't going to be anymore type 1 days. Only types 2 and 3. As Elder Holland said in a devotional here, not everyone can be happy all the time. But we can live after the manner of happiness and the gloom will never last (I'm paraphrasing).
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