Finding Time

My blogging tends to fall into one of several categories; info I want to share, insight I hope to offer, funny things my kids have done, and lastly, but on some days the most crucial, plain old therapeutic philandering.

Today is a therapy day.

If you don't like therapy days, I'm tellin' ya early so you can check out.

I mentioned in my last post that I thought that one of the biggest challenges to motherhood was balancing the creative and the mundane, or your passions and your responsibilities as a mother. Intimately tied to that very challenge is what I believe to be the second biggest challenge to not just motherhood, but parenthood in general (because our husbands suffer this too), it is finding time to do the things you want to do.

What's on my list today...hmmm...

• getting a jog in...the ankle is feeling better and I'm feeling very unexercised! 
• letting hubby get a six mile run it...he likes to do that on Saturdays
• putting the 3 baskets of laundry away that are upstairs
• going over to Office Depot to see about printing some business cards- I'm going to a reading/writing conference in 3 weeks and think it would be good to have some cards- this requires researching what goes on such cards, etc.
• Organizing a massive pile of papers/mail/randomness that has ended up in a basket in our dining room
• reading the book "Simplify Your Life" so that I can figure out how to simplify/organize my life
• Painting the downstairs bathroom, our kitchen and our bedroom
• Painting all the trim in the house white
• Shopping for bras that actually fit because I'm still wearing some of my nursing bras...ack...did I say that aloud? Yes, I haven't nursed in months, but those very bras are in the rotation because they actually fit! 
• Working on organizing the girls clothes in the basement...and unpacking boxes of stuff that is still packed down there...perhaps even finding the borrowed breastpump that we embarrasingly seem to have lost, but is, I'm sure just living somewhere quietly in a box in our basement
• Organizing closets...lots of them...but we need closet organizers and shelves and such, which means a trip to Home Depot

This is just a partial list...

Alright, I promise to never do that to you again...making you read my to-do list.  But, as I said in the beginning, this is therapy today and I needed to get that off my chest! 

I remember casually bumping into an old acquaintance years before Scott and I had children. He and his wife had just had a baby. He is actually a writer, had just finished an MFA and his wife is a creative type too. It was a somewhat strange conversation because he is a bit of a strange guy, but I'll never forget him looking at me, after I asked how being a parent was and expecting him to say "Wonderful", he just said, 

"Nothing in my life has showed me more how selfish of a person I am." 

Whoa! 

Yeah...definitely didn't get that before becoming a parent myself. 

And now I think about it almost every day. As I struggle to find time to blog, or to run, or to clean my closet, things I feel so desperately will help me with what feels like a life of pure chaos on many days, I find myself feeling like a bad mom because it's hard to find the time to do all of those things and still spend quality time with my children. And my husband. And my friends and family. 

Being a parent is all about sacrifices. Constant sacrifices. 

Sometimes you sacrifice the writing, sometimes the sleeping, sometimes the exercising, on many days it's my personal appearance (if it's 7:45 p.m. and I haven't showered all day, but have an hour and a half to run out and do errands before the stores close, do you think I'm going to take the time to shower?! Not so much), lots of times it is time with our significant others (the topic of another post to come this week), sometimes it's the cleaning, and sometimes when you stop to do any one of those other things, it's time with your children. 

Constant, perpetual, sacrifice. 

This morning, for example, I got up at 6:45 after having gone to bed at 12:15. The girls and Scott are all still sleeping and I could be too, but you have to make a choice; sleep or writing/blogging time. I've been trying to get to bed a little earlier and get up earlier to pray as well-- it helps to start my day on the right foot when I can organize my thoughts before tending to the girls.

It's hard. Plain and simple. When you have one child there are pockets of time, with two, well, even your pockets start to fill up and all that is left are scraps...small scraps of time...

Let me just say, I realize life could be SO much harder in many respects and I'm always leery of sounding ungrateful, but that doesn't mean it's not a challenge. 

I'm going to leave it at that for today...closely related to this topic are two other things I'm going to post about later this week:

1. Being more than roomates (a discussion about finding time for your marriage)

2. Intentionality: simply put, being intentional about the things that are important (i.e. how you spend time with your children and husband)

Everyone is still sleeping here, so I'm going to organize the rest of my thoughts in an effort to start this day out on the right foot! 

Cheers!