Ice Cream Before Bed

Ugh. I am pretty much feeling All The Feelings right now. Which means I am in need of eating some dessert. Preferably a big Dairy Queen blizzard. Because eating my feelings always makes me feel better -- at least for the five or ten minutes it takes me to eat, and then I just feel the same. But I'm willing to make the sacrifice of eating the ice cream in order to not feel All The Feelings for a few deliciously cool and milky minutes.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on. A lot of overwhelmedness and feelings of inadequacy...ness.  Even though I haven't been getting up to feed Nora all night long (hooray!), I am still somehow sleep deprived, and everything is harder to deal with and more overwhelming when there's lack of sleep involved.

Life just feels so much harder when you're looking at it through the glasses of fatigue. Every choice feels more difficult, and more urgent. And making the wrong choice seems more possible, and more life-ending than usual. Every whiny voice takes on more of an edge. Every tantrum makes me want to fall into bed and quit for the day. Every errand feels attached to a fifty pound weight that makes moving so incredibly hard. Every bedtime routine that takes fifty-gazillion hours makes me want to pull my hair out and go hide in the car.

Then bedtime is finally finished and everyone's sleeping. (And by everyone I mean our children.) And all-of-a-sudden I'm still dog-tired yet life doesn't seem quite so hard. We chuckle as I retell stories from the day. My heart misses them, even though just a few minutes before I was D-O-N-E, Done. And I peek at them, cozy in their beds and I can't wait until morning to see their big smiles and hear their goofy giggles again.

I am pretty much in need of a Dairy Queen blizzard every night lately. There's something about the evening that wears me down right now -- perhaps it is the two little darlings that get tucked in at eight thirty but don't end up asleep until ten o'clock. Or perhaps it's the mama who goes to bed after eleven o'clock even though every morning she tells herself TODAY is the day she is going to bed at nine. Perhaps it is a combination of both.

Pretty much all I know is, the more I write right now, the more rambly I am getting, which means it's time for bed. After my ice cream, of course.

xoxo, christine

We Might Have More Tomorrow

Today I am participating in The Spill over at Little White Whale.  She provides the quote and I'm finding my inspiration from the quote.

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.  

~~Dr. Seuss

Today was a good day for ice cream.

We love ice cream.

Tomorrow is a good day for ice cream too.

 Because, really, every day is.

Can you tell how much I love ice cream?

xoxo.

Christine

Ice Cream Patience

Oh my what a week it's been.  Not hard, exactly, but just ugh.  Heavy.

On Tuesday, or maybe it was only Wednesday, I decided that I want to focus on some happy moments.  I want to write about something fun and exciting from this week.  And it's not that there haven't been any good moments, I just haven't felt particularly joyous.  Or inspired.

Earlier in the week we skipped Paige's nap and devoured an afternoon snack of ice cream.  The girls licked their bowls clean, faces a mess with chocolate smears and blue and white sprinkles.  It dripped onto their shirts and pants, painted beards on their faces, and left streaks of stickiness in their hair.  Instead of bemoaning the mess I let it go and soaked up the joy in their smiles, the sparkles in their eyes.

Of course, I am now kicking myself for not at least pretreating the chocolate stains.  The brown splotches have yet to come out, and I'm beginning to think I've lost this battle.

But, that's a small price to pay.

I find that when I let things go, it all just seem to be easier, to go more smoothly.  Perhaps this is sort of a "duh" thought, but it's like I have to relearn this every couple weeks.  (Or months, if I'm lucky.  And days if I'm not.)  When I let go of the mess and the control, and my other hang-ups, my patience seems to increased tenfold.  I am more relaxed and I have more fun.  And I'm sure that, in turn, leads to more fun for the girls.  After all, it's more fun to let your ice cream drip down your chin, than to have Mommy wipe your chin after every bite.

Not that I would ever do that.  Err....

But I appreciate them, these happy moments.  Even if I don't always feel as joyous as I would like to.  Or think I should be feeling.  I know the more I can let go, the more frequent they will be.  And that would be good for us all.