Life on Cottage Hill

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Cloudy Days

I like to think that most of the time I am an optimist. Most always in a good mood, inspired, driven, happy... but the truth is that the past couple of weeks have been a real roller coaster. I find it absolutely useless to whine about things, so for me to openly say that I'm having a rough time means that I'm really having a rough time. And I just need to get some of it out, for my own good.

Nothing strikingly horrible has happened to me. It's just been the day to day stuff that has built up and has become too much. It started with a rough patch in my career. I was going through one of those phases that all working moms go through where I was questioning my passion for the work I do, if I was doing the right thing, if I was even good at what I do. That sort of thing.

Then, add to that Dan's crazy work schedule the past couple of weeks- it has made me feel like a single mom in many ways. I am now on drop off and pick up duty which gives me anxiety in itself. Because it means that I need to squeeze all of my work responsibilities into even fewer hours which is not possible. So my long to do list becomes longer and eats away at me. It means that more burden is put on my mom who keeps Jackson almost every day which I feel so guilty about although she would never make me feel like it bothers her. It means that Jackson is away from home more which is not ideal. It means that more of my time with Jackson is "in the car time" or doing "chores" which is not quality time. It means that we have had dinner as a family very few times lately and that Dan and I have had close to zero time together lately.

Add to this that Jackson has been waking up several time at night which means I am going on an average of about 5 or 6 hours of sleep each night- none of it all at once. I think that caught up with me last night when all of a sudden during the night I felt like I had just been hit by a truck. I must have some version of the flu because I still feel awful. I stayed home from work so I wouldn't' spread my germs but again tonight Dan is still not home from work and it's going on 9:00pm.

I could add many more things to this list, but the moral of the story for me is that things are hard right now and I know they'll get better soon. Maybe even tomorrow. But, for now I feel in a big burnt out rut. I am so ready to get off of this roller coaster. This ride is making me sick- literally.

After "venting" with this post I almost deleted it and didn't share, but I think it's important, especially as a woman, to admit openly and without guilt that there are some days (or weeks) when things just don't go well. When we feel defeated. When we feel less than stellar. And that's okay. That's okay as long as we pick ourselves back up and march forward with confidence, knowing that it's all going to turn out just fine. No, better than fine. It's all going to be absolutely amazing. In times like these we need to be honest with ourselves in how we feel, acknowledge what we're going through- maybe even sulk a little bit or get angry- and then dig deep into our pockets of faith and lift ourselves back up with the help of God and our loved ones. So with that out of my system I'm off to get some rest with the hopes of a better day tomorrow!

Monday, November 15, 2010

The highlight of my Monday

Tonight, during play time, we were doing our normal thing...

playing with books and blocks and puzzles-

JP was climbing on the sofa, his activity table, me-

then he went to climb on his little alligator walker-

usually he uses it to stand up, but tonight not only did he stand up,

but then he took off walking by holding onto it-

all the way across the room!

Another take...

If you watched both videos I thank you for indulging the over-enthusiastic-over-the-top-proud mother in me.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

How do you keep your feet on the ground when you know that you were born to fly...

Today was a great day. We started out with church (great message, as always- more to come on that later) and then we celebrated my brother, Jordan's, 15th birthday. About a month ago I gave him a list of options for what he wanted to do with Dan, Jackson and I to celebrate his birthday. He quickly overlooked all of my museum suggestions and chose the "helicopter ride"- which just so happened to be something I have been wanting to do as well (needed to cross it off the life list). So, this afternoon we had lunch followed by a helicopter ride over Cincinnati. So much fun!