Meal plan for well-balanced healthy options
Buy groceries
Prepare each meal
Organize the children's clothes seasonally and by size...every dang season (so many seasons in Texas)
Keep track of the girls daycare outfits, dirty underwear, "art" and hair ties
Keep track of shower days and bath days for children
Keep track of shower days for myself...real talk, only during maternity leave season, I promise. It's grimy in these streets, ya'll.
Clean
Dust
Mop
Scrub
Organize - Re-organize - Give up
All of the doctor appointments and those ridiculous ASQ's
Pay that bill on time
Call and Text Friends
Connect with my God
Connect with my husband
Connect with my kids, learn them, teach them, read at least three bedtime stories to make up for the fact that I am a working mom who is somehow failing them.
Entertain company
Show up to work - on time
Be present for my students and remember the intricate details of their lives.
Early to bed to establish a schedule with the baby. feed the baby. feed the baby. Early to rise for prayer.
Keep it together, smile and don't complain, yeah right
Always striving for seamless excellence. Everyday.
Even after the longest day at work I INSIST on cooking meals from scratch each night and eating at the table as a family, screaming baby and all. I refuse for any member to be left out so Jesse, my 2 month, old must join us at the table come peaceful or pouting. Our routine is one of my masterpieces. Your girl got skills. I ring the dinner bell each night waiting for everyone to show up at the table for a hot plate because I have been planning this execution since the wee hours of the morning. That is when my mental stopwatch begins; in the morning, 12 am. Tick, Tock. Each day is a well-synchronized mash-up of precisely-timed activities. I "git er duuuun" as it were and congratulate myself when 7:15p.m. comes and the children are off to bed. I time myself for each task including cat-naps. I am the master of my domain. I am adept in the economy of my abode. In short, I do a lot and I need everyone on board. I laid this out for my supervisor once and he said, "That sounds like an exhausting way to live". It energizes me and I don't know how people don't function like me. Chop chop!
One night I made a new menu item. It was simple and involved pasta so I assumed that everyone would enjoy it. Rookie-move. Toddlers never enjoy dinner even when they do. It's a secret law for them or something. Myka hated it. She cried her way through every bite until the meal capitulated with her vomiting all over the kitchen floor. The nerve. I was done. My response was, admittedly, over the top and insensitive. I hurried her to her room and huffed, "I HATE DINNERTIME!" Sweet Madeline parroted my avowal which snapped me out of my tantrum. I apologized and thought of all the "things" I do striving for efficiency. In this moment, having hurt my Myka's feelings it all was so pointless. I was sweating, sweeping and scrubbing the floor. It was 7:30p.m. The day won.
Having a third child has disrupted my flow of predictability (sounds like a blast, eh?)). I love everything about him but I am still figuring out how he fits. He absolutely belongs but I do not know how he fits. I cannot imagine life with my little red-headed wonder but he broke my stopwatch. I have to molt my old skin and this is uncomfortable. My vulnerabilities and inadequacies are exposed. Life calls for flexibility these days. Stretch. Give more. But I don't want to. It's unfair. I often resent the stretching so I resist it and deny the blessing it offers me. The lingering question behind the internal tick tock and external cries of, "Mommy, please!" is "Why do I have to do everything?", "Why is my life the only one enduring such a dramatic shift?" This obvious hyperbole but is my reality. Mom's really do carry a whole heck of a lot. It just seems to be the nature of the beast.
The tug and tension of this new season of life requires me to stretch in ways that I feel ill-equipped. I need control. Rigidity relaxes me. What I think is a call for more structure is really God-given space for flexibility and flow. Not just at dinner time but with my finances, my marriage, my relationship with my children, my work, myself. God is patiently prying my tiny fingers open, loosening my grip before I slowly squeeze the life out of my life hating every part of it. This journey cannot sustain my grip. I know that I can honor God with my strategic time-management but not for the sake of abandoning Spiritual, fruitful living. I think of Psalm 46:10, "Cease striving (or Be Still) and KNOW that I am God". Clearly, I am not facing war or being pursued by my enemy but I am stressing out and in need of some stillness. Striving is not the proper way though it is a drug for this control-fiend. KNOWING is my new road. Maternity leave is listening to sermons all day while rocking my baby and reading scripture on my phone during our 2 am feeding. Finding God anew. Getting to know Him.
Biblical knowing is not in the head but the heart. It means intimacy, relationship, trust, depth, free-falling into a space where God holds it all together and my world consists in Christ alone. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. In this reality, I ask my husband for help and receive it guilt-free. We rally together. We budget with flair and do not fret. We are oddly comfortable in what we lack waiting for God to do above and beyond. We stretch together, offering stability when life's pull is too overwhelming. In KNOWING God, life is slow. It is a new wonder to experience. I exhale each day with my family tracing the footprint of the day rather than creating it. I am a friend who has faults. I am an employee who is not responsible for every poor decision of my students. I am a mom who is present and patient. I am free.
