this is life.
I have five baskets of laundry in my room. My husband wants me to let everyone know that its folded and waiting to be put away, but still... its sitting in baskets in my room. And I don't know when it will get put away. Maybe when its worn.
I still haven't wrapped or sent Christmas gifts to either of our families. They're going to be New Year's gifts. You've heard of those, right?
We didn't do nearly as much baking as we wanted to.
We have quite a few Christmas movies we still need to watch. And then I remember what the word 'need' really means and I remind myself about 'first world problems'.
I have 3 older kids that are going through a phase where they act more like enemies than friends.
I remember going through that with my sisters and here we are, adults and we love each other. So I have hope.
Miles got a minor cold from teething just after Thanksgiving (you know, right after we decided to take off his teething necklace, lol)
The nasal drip from his cold turned into bronchitis, which we didn't realize he had. Amazing how you're cough doesn't have to be horrible for it to be something like bronchitis.
That turned into Pneumonia.
So here we are, a few days before Christmas and on his 21 month birthday, he's super sick.
Which means we can't go do all our fun outdoor festivities, I don't have time to prep the huge Christmas feast I had planned, and life kind of feels like it went into stand still mode.
But I look back at my previous posts and realize, this is kind of what we were hoping for, minus Miles getting Pneumonia. Its been calm and quite. There's been way less sleep than I'd like, but still.
And I'm reminded of how convenient it is that we're not traveling this year, because we would've had to cancel all our plans anyway. Blessings in disguise.
I think I showered this week.
The toilets aren't clean, but they still work!
My pediatrician pointed out that Miles could use a nail trim. Oh right. I forgot I'm supposed to do that. He joked that I could squirt some breast milk on them.... which made me laugh so hard. He knows me well.
The joke's on him though because I haven't nursed since August.
I think I have 4 voice mails on my cell to listen to and about 44 on our home phone. The lazy side of me wants to just unplug the home phone and pretend they never happened.
Its so amazing to me what little things can make us feel like we've achieved failure status.
We set these standards and then when we don't meet our own standards, we chalk ourselves up to bad parents, or not as good as other parents, or "if my friends really knew this stuff about me, they wouldn't be friends with me." If that's true, I think your New Year's resolution should be to stop being friends with those people.
Sometimes I have to sit and physically make a list of all the things I believe have made life stressful. Or things I think I'm bad at. Or failing at. Or things I should be doing but I'm not.
I can usually take 1 or 2 things off the list and say "yes, this should be getting done." but there's typically about 10+ things I read and say "Stefanie, get over yourself. This isn't an issue. It will get done when it can get done." And if we don't make all the glittery amazing Christmas things we wanted to make, or we don't do every obsessive winter tradition we do every.single.year, life will go on. Our kids won't remember and they're probably sick of the obsessing anyway.
This is life.
Sometimes it flow so smoothly and we stay on top of it all and other times we tread water.
I'm just thankful that the 'treading water' times are the ones that really always point me to Jesus and remind me that I can't do it by myself.
And I'm super thankful for a husband who never makes me feel like I've failed or could be so much better at other things. He's my biggest fan and I'm not sure he realizes how far that goes in the life of a busy mom. We need people to encourage us and cheer us on and tell us we do too much anyway, so this is the break we didn't know we needed. I hope you have someone telling you those things in your life.
Competition in marriage and other friendships is so unhealthy and only leaves people feeling beat down and unloved. So if you're that type, add stop being so prideful and competitive to your New Year's resolution list.
All this from the person who isn't making a list.
Oh well.
Happy New Year :)
I still haven't wrapped or sent Christmas gifts to either of our families. They're going to be New Year's gifts. You've heard of those, right?
We didn't do nearly as much baking as we wanted to.
We have quite a few Christmas movies we still need to watch. And then I remember what the word 'need' really means and I remind myself about 'first world problems'.
I have 3 older kids that are going through a phase where they act more like enemies than friends.
I remember going through that with my sisters and here we are, adults and we love each other. So I have hope.
Miles got a minor cold from teething just after Thanksgiving (you know, right after we decided to take off his teething necklace, lol)
The nasal drip from his cold turned into bronchitis, which we didn't realize he had. Amazing how you're cough doesn't have to be horrible for it to be something like bronchitis.
That turned into Pneumonia.
So here we are, a few days before Christmas and on his 21 month birthday, he's super sick.
Which means we can't go do all our fun outdoor festivities, I don't have time to prep the huge Christmas feast I had planned, and life kind of feels like it went into stand still mode.
But I look back at my previous posts and realize, this is kind of what we were hoping for, minus Miles getting Pneumonia. Its been calm and quite. There's been way less sleep than I'd like, but still.
And I'm reminded of how convenient it is that we're not traveling this year, because we would've had to cancel all our plans anyway. Blessings in disguise.
I think I showered this week.
The toilets aren't clean, but they still work!
My pediatrician pointed out that Miles could use a nail trim. Oh right. I forgot I'm supposed to do that. He joked that I could squirt some breast milk on them.... which made me laugh so hard. He knows me well.
The joke's on him though because I haven't nursed since August.
I think I have 4 voice mails on my cell to listen to and about 44 on our home phone. The lazy side of me wants to just unplug the home phone and pretend they never happened.
Its so amazing to me what little things can make us feel like we've achieved failure status.
We set these standards and then when we don't meet our own standards, we chalk ourselves up to bad parents, or not as good as other parents, or "if my friends really knew this stuff about me, they wouldn't be friends with me." If that's true, I think your New Year's resolution should be to stop being friends with those people.
Sometimes I have to sit and physically make a list of all the things I believe have made life stressful. Or things I think I'm bad at. Or failing at. Or things I should be doing but I'm not.
I can usually take 1 or 2 things off the list and say "yes, this should be getting done." but there's typically about 10+ things I read and say "Stefanie, get over yourself. This isn't an issue. It will get done when it can get done." And if we don't make all the glittery amazing Christmas things we wanted to make, or we don't do every obsessive winter tradition we do every.single.year, life will go on. Our kids won't remember and they're probably sick of the obsessing anyway.
This is life.
Sometimes it flow so smoothly and we stay on top of it all and other times we tread water.
I'm just thankful that the 'treading water' times are the ones that really always point me to Jesus and remind me that I can't do it by myself.
And I'm super thankful for a husband who never makes me feel like I've failed or could be so much better at other things. He's my biggest fan and I'm not sure he realizes how far that goes in the life of a busy mom. We need people to encourage us and cheer us on and tell us we do too much anyway, so this is the break we didn't know we needed. I hope you have someone telling you those things in your life.
Competition in marriage and other friendships is so unhealthy and only leaves people feeling beat down and unloved. So if you're that type, add stop being so prideful and competitive to your New Year's resolution list.
All this from the person who isn't making a list.
Oh well.
Happy New Year :)
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