Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Something's Gotta Give

I think I mentioned this already, but I've been feeling mentally tapped out from all the creative projects on my to-do list. I mean that in a better way than it sounds. I enjoy feeling so creatively inspired, and thankfully, I am at a place in life where despite how busy I am, there is enough time here and there throughout my days to tackle some of those projects.

But as many of you who are moms know, sometimes that time you hope to use for your creative pursuits gets snatched up by family. By parenting. Not much you can do about it.

For me, something has to give at the moment. I have quite a few parenting issues that are going to demand more of me, and soon. Let's run through them, shall we?

-- I have two months left of maternity leave. And not a drop of milk saved. Because I don't wanna pump. But starting with Tuesday, I've added at least one pumping session per day into my schedule. Complain, whine, complain.

-- I say "at least one" because it might be two. Why? Because Jack has had all of three bottles in his life, and he needs practice. So I can be away from him for more than two hours. So one pumping a day will be saved, and potentially the second would be used to get him on friendlier terms with his bottle.

-- Luke will be three in July. He will start preschool in September. You know what this means. We need to be DONE with the diapers. Which means potty-training needs more than the half-ass attention I've been giving it.

-- Jack also needs to transition out of our room and into his. Soon. Because he is spending more than half the night in bed with me, nursing every two hours or so. He can't get too used to that. It's trouble. We moved Luke at the four-month mark. And guess what? Jack hit that mark yesterday.

My big little 4-month-old.
So it's time. Time for this big boy to move to his big baby room.  This will probably mean more sleep interruptions than we're used to. Me trudging up and down the stairs. Which will mean more napping and less sewing and blog writing.

On top of those things in the parenting column, I also want to start working out more. I got way lazy for the last five weeks. Few workouts, plus a trip to Dallas for a wedding, Mother's Day, a bunch of social events, our anniversary, Memorial Day picnics... To put it plainly, I've been pigging out. So I need to spend some time with my friend Jillian Michaels. I hate feeling doughy, and that's what a month of eating cookie dough and reading blogs will get you.

What I'm trying to say: I need to regain some balance. I hope it won't totally disrupt my sewing. Or blogging!. It's been so wonderful getting this blog off the ground, and I'm so happy to have you who follow me here! I know, given how obsessed I am at the moment with sewing and the online craft community, things won't change much for the next few weeks. But maybe a little.

So this is just an FYI, and a little bit of a call for sympathy, too. Ladies, I'm not alone here, right? Doesn't life just smack you in the face sometimes and make it damn near impossible to keep on crafting?

Let me know how you keep your balance in the comments! Oh, here's how balanced I was Tuesday: I pumped, I gave Jack a bottle, I grocery shopped, I did my Jillian DVD, AND I finished my next contribution to The Summer of No Pants. It can be done! Here's a sneak peak! I'll reveal the full thing tomorrow.


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2 comments:

  1. I totally get that. I feel like I never sit down sometimes between taking care of the kids, crafting, sewing, and making sure the house doesn't look like a war zone. It's hard to find balance (I'm still trying to find that balance!) I also moved our boy to his own room a few weeks ago. I thought it would be harder because he wouldn't be right next to the bed for me to just grab him, but he's actually done really well and started waking up only once in the night. We think my husband's snoring was keeping him up ;) Enjoy your last few weeks on maternity leave!

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  2. I understand completely. It seems that something is always giving way for me. Crafts left a long time ago. Balance is so hard to find. I know you can do it. I hope the transition to big baby room goes smoothly, as does full on potty training. We tried that with TRex to utter disaster. He cried and cried, so we stopped. About a month later, he came to us, wanting to use the potty and we've never looked back (and we never had to use pull-ups a night and have had very, very few accidents, even in the beginning). The Dancing Queen is a different story. She is not potty trained and nowhere near it (laxis b.i.d. doesn't help). Luckily, her two pre-schools allow diapers!

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