I Finally Feel Like a Functioning Human Again!

Now that Joseph is finally sleeping at night, I feel like a new person. It's as if I came out of a 7-month-long fog, and can finally start living life again. (There were days, sometimes weeks during the past few months when I felt as if I were merely existing. Going through the motions of the day, but so exhausted that I wasn't really experiencing it fully.)

Now that i'm caught up on sleep and no longer feel like a zombie, I'm excited to focus on being a good wife, mother, and homemaker again. I'm looking forward to planning fun activities for us as a family to do on the weekends like berry picking (we already picked strawberries!), farmers market visits, local festivals and concerts, and trips to the beach.

During the week I'm making it my goal to plan fun, stimulating activities for the kids on most days, but also leaving some days for lazy summer fun. (Scheduled things will include the Children's museum, the playground, the zoo, playdates, etc.) Storytime at our local library started up again this week, so we will be there every Wednesday morning.

I also want to get back to my cleaning routine. When you live in a small apartment, it doesn't take much for the entire place to look like it was hit by a toy tornado. I'm eager to reorganize everything, create a weekly cleaning schedule for myself, and stay on top of daily chores. (Dishes, laundry, toy pick-up, etc.)

While it's great to be excited about finally taking control of my life again, I also know that I need to, you know, do it. So to start, i'm going to get up at 6am during the week. Instead of lying in bed waiting for the kids to wake up, i'm going to get up and get my day started. Even if I only manage a cup of coffee before the rest of the house wakes, i'll be more alert and ready to dive in to our plans. And if it happens to be a day when everyone sleeps late, I can get things done around the house.

Once waking up early becomes habit, I will work on creating my cleaning, activity, and meal plan schedules using google calendar. I also want to make a loose daily routine that I can post on our wall. It won't be something that I have to stick to, but it will be a guideline. It will serve to prevent that awful "it's 10am and the kids are still in their jammies so now we'll never get the day started" feeling I frequently got when I was running on 2 hours of sleep a night.

I know myself, and doing all these things will make me a happier, more organized and more productive wife and mommy. And who doesn't want that? (I know my dear husband prefers that to zombie woman...)

I can't wait to get back on a routine, and spend the summer fully attuned to my life.

YAY for sleep! :)

Strawberry picking was a success!

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Clean Up, Clean Up

"Cleaning up with children around is like shoveling during a blizzard." - Anonymous

This was someone's facebook status this morning, and I just had to use it. It perfectly sums up the challenges of trying to keep a house clean with a toddler around. (Actually, i'm sure it applys to any age child, but my experience right now is with a toddler.)

Since we live in a small apartment, clutter gives me anxiety. It used to be so easy for me to run after Stephanie, cleaning up whenever she was done playing with something. I'm a big believer in "everything has a place," and I make sure that every time a new toy arrives in our house, it has a place to call home. But lately it's been harder and harder for me to keep up.

Part of the problem is that i'm trying to teach Stephanie to clean up after herself, and that once she's done playing with something it needs to get put away. She loves the "clean-up" song, and will help me clean up if I sing it. (She even sings along.) But she's only 18 months, so her attention span isn't always long enough to completely finish cleaning up an activity. Then by the time i'm done with it, she's taken 3 more things out...and moved onto something else. And of course, everything has a million pieces, which have often been strewn from one end of the apartment to another, so half of the cleaning time is spent searching out each part of a toy. (And try asking an 18 month old where something is. She'll head off to look for it, then get distracted and wind up making a bigger mess.)

I also lack the energy right now to really enforce the "one toy out at a time rule." I'm moving slower than usual, and it's hard to bend over to pick up toys. So what usually happens when I see 3 more things out is that I give up. (Such bad parenting, I know.)

By naptime our entire apartment looks like Toys R' Us exploded. We don't have a playroom, so there are toys in the living room and in Stephanie's bedroom. But they also migrate to the dining room, the kitchen, and the master bedroom. And if she's gotten into the bathroom at all during the day, there are bath toys flung all over that room as well. It drives me CRAZY but right now there just isn't anything I can do about it. I also tell myself that it's going to be worse than this when the baby comes, because we'll be sleep deprived on top of taking care of two little ones. Maybe if I can train myself to relax about the clutter now, it will help me not to freak out then.

The best i've been able to do is make sure that it's all cleaned up every time she goes to bed. I do one big "clean-up" sweep at naptime, and another when she goes to bed. Then I have a few hours of serenity when I think "wow, our apartment can look really nice." Until, of course, she wakes up and the cycle begins again.

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