Taking time to smell the roses

There's always something that has to be done, that needs to be done, that will not wait or else. But how much do those things really matter? Do you ever notice that we don't take enough time to just enjoy life? Maybe it's just me. I tend to be a worrier and a planner. I like to have everything neatly packaged, planned out, and second guessed. I have backup plans and backups to the backup plans. I know exactly what I'm going to be doing all day until I don't get it done. There is always so much to do, and I get caught up in the whirlwind of trying to make it happen.

Mostly, though, I worry. I worry about how to keep my house clean and my bills paid. About how to get to work on time and what I'm doing with my life. About how best to handle my cats and their craziness. About ... well ... insert pretty much anything (here). I like to think of it as planning, but probably half the time it's really just a cover for worrying. With all this planning (/worrying) it doesn't leave as much time for enjoying as I had thought being well planned out would leave.

Recently I have been reminded every morning as I drive into work that I need to slow down and just enjoy life. My day starts at 5am (ish) when I get up to get ready for work and for the day. I leave for work around 6:30 (ish) and until not too long ago most of my drive was in the dark or pre-dawn. However for the past week or so I have been regaled with an absolutely beautiful dawning of the day. In my rear-view mirror as I come around a particular bend a stunning red sun surrounded by clouds of fire and gold take my breath away. And I realize: I've been focusing too much on the little things. With all the beauty around me, why do I never see it? Why am I so intent on getting to work fast, or planning out how best to clean, or how best to pay off my bills that I cannot just sit down and enjoy the flowers or sitting on the grass with my daughter? Granted that things like paying bills, feeding your family, etc are all important things, but they should not take up your entire day. That way only leads to stress and discontent. One of these days I want to just sit and watch the sun come up. The entire way. Then I think I'll play outside with my daughter for a while & make a picnic for us to take to a park with Daddy.

"Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" - Matthew 6:26 (NIV)

Life - it's one of those things!

Life is one of those things you never see coming until it hits you. One moment you're playing in the park in front of your house, designing a super gymnastics course complete with hurdles (aka park benches) and more; the next you're cutting coupons and hoping you can get up the energy to fold your laundry tonight.

When did this happen? Each day seems to take forever to pass, and yet months go by without my noticing. How is our perception of time so flexible that minutes can take forever and yet years fly by? Is the human brain not big enough to handle the passage of time, and thus it cuts off portions? Does it ignore all the "boring" parts and boil a year down to the interesting? If that were so, what does it say about our lives, that we forget so much of our day to day?

When I was young, anything seemed possible. Everything seemed possible. We were traveling constantly and I knew that for the rest of my life I'd be traveling and making new friends. Towards the end of college I agonized over what to do with my life "after." One of the many plans I had was to join the service or the CIA. Either would let me travel, see new places, have an interesting life. Almost ten years later I find myself settled down (a think I never thought I would do) in a house with a child doing mundane things like dishes, and laundry, and coupons, and yard work. Not to say that this is boring - I actually quite enjoy my life overall - but this is in no way the fantastically exciting life I'd pictured when I was younger.

The funny thing is that while I sometimes sit back and wish I could go back to being single for a couple years to do all the traveling and cool things I hear others doing, I find myself too attached to this "settled"  life I'm in. Somehow, the joyous "mommy!" I get every time I pick my daughter up from her sitter's has become so much more important than even a visit back to South America (which I would love to take). The thought of hearing that in chorus makes me briefly forget that I've ever wanted anything else.

It hit me as well recently that throughout my life I've usually been the youngest of my group of friends. Now, however, find myself being one of the older friends in the groups. In some cases that's good - who thinks I'm an old fogy? No one! I find that I still identify with the early 20s crowd and not so much with the early/mid 30s group. Maybe it's a part of that time that my brain chopped off. Maybe I am just in denial. Or maybe it is as simple as this: I live in Never-Never land and while Wendy is off growing up, I'm staying young.

I am expecting any day to blink and find out that I'm 40 with a teenager (Lord have mercy!). I hope that I won't look back then and think that these were my "exciting" years. I hope that I can remember these years - that my brain does not decide to chop them off. My 40 year old self will probably laugh at my 30 year old self for thinking that this is life "hitting me." My 50 year old self will be laughing while remembering PTA and after-school events. My 60 year old self will probably laugh at all of us, shake her head, and say "They never saw this coming!" Yes indeed, life is just one of those things!

When it's ripe, it's ripe.

  Growing up my mom always used to tell us about a time when she and some of her siblings tried to teach their youngest brother about how to tell if a fruit was ripe by it's color. Apparently he was doing pretty well, so they presented themselves to my grandparents to show off his new skill. "Don, how do you tell if a fruit is ripe?" To which he proudly replied, "When it's ripe, it's ripe!"

Isn't that the truth! I am a planning type of person. I like to know when things are going to happen. If it relates to me I can plan it out and know when I am going to do each step and how I will bring each project to completion. Not so when it comes to other people. I can plan things out for them, but I'll be doggon if they do things the right (read that "my") way at the right (read that "planned") time.

My daughter is the worst offender when it comes to following my plans. I suppose she gets it from her daddy, who really does not give a flip about how I've planned for things to go. Alright, so that might not be true, but he definitely gets a kick out of all my planning and things (probably rightly so) that in most instances it's quite silly to keep trying to plan or adjust plans when things are going to change tomorrow. Rachel probably does not think I'm silly, but if she does, at least I do not know about it. She, however, loves to smash up all my timelines. Sitting up, crawling, walking, sleeping through the night... all the physical milestones are just NOT happening the way I plan for them to. She has even confounded my husband with her stubbornness.

All that being said... when it's ripe, it's ripe. Rachel is slow on all her large physical milestones, but when she learns them, it is usually in the span of a couple hours. Sitting up took a bit more practice, but she learned to crawl (like an expert) in a matter of 5 hours. She had waited 10 months for those 5 hours, but 5 hours none-the-less. Climbing onto the couch took her an hour to learn to do well. Getting down probably the same timespan. Walking took her all of 3.5 hours to go from the first solo steps to walking the entire house, but she waited until she was 15 months to try. Sleeping through the night, eh, it's a work in progress, but she's mostly had that mastered since about 14 months.

Other things, they happen when they happen also. Mike did not go through college right after school, but when he decided to do it, he sped through the classes and ended up with a 3.79 GPA. When I was job hunting I applied for months and had no interviews, then all of a sudden I got callback after callback and had at least 1 interview a day for a week. It's true: when it's ripe, it's ripe. I guess that means when my diet happens it will drop all my lbs right away... right?

On Becoming a Mam-Bi

 They (whomever that might be) say that kids will take over your life. What they don't tell you is that you won't see it coming. One moment you're a swinging single, having the time of your life; the next you are a newly wed, soaking in the love; the next you're changing poopy diapers in the middle of the night when you're sick - and doing it without a second thought.

Three years ago if you showed me a snapshot of my life right now I'd have thought you were joking. It is amazing how we, as humans, can adapt to changes thrown our way. If you told me I could whip my house into shape with a 1 year old "helping" and still have time to play with her and snuggle I might not have believed it. And yet... I do it every week. In a similarly spectacular feat, I recently saw a news story about a Haitian amputee soccer team who by all reports are doing a fantastic job. Okay, so maybe their story is more interesting/amazing than mine. Also, I am by no means comparing myself to someone lacking a limb - I gained one!

Before I had children I babysat. When I was pregnant I felt my daughter moving inside me. After she was born we spent 4 months almost inseparably. I remember last year at this time when my husband took me out to dinner for our anniversary I kept wondering how the baby was - I was not used to being away from her so much. About a week ago I found myself thinking that while I have gotten used to the idea that I have to have someone watching my daughter when I'm at work, I still like to spend every other scrap of time I have with her. This child fascinates me. The rate at which she learns things astounds me. Watching her and my husband interact are moments I treasure.

Sometimes I worry that I am going to fail completely. How can I make sure she learns what she needs to: learns to love the Lord, learns to be a good person, learns all her numbers and letters, learns interpersonal skills necessary to life, and so much more? Sometimes I feel like there is not enough time in the days to show her how to be the wonderful person I want her to be. That I know she can be. That she is. Growing up I don't remember that we ever had a lot of STUFF, but there was always an abundance of love. Looking back, no matter what else, we always knew we were loved; that's what I want for my daughter.

With the advent of speaking looming closer, Rachel (always a chatty one) has begun to learn new words a million miles a minute and recently as begun to combine words. Her daddy taught her to say "baby" the other day, and now everything is "baby, baby, baby." Even mommy, which used to be "ma-ma" has now become "mam-bi." Part mama, part baby - I am now just an extension of her. I guess that's what being a mommy means.

Organization Mania

To Do lists have got to be my all time favorite hobby. Well, besides playing with the little one. I have millions of them, some in writing, most in my head. Chores, bills, home improvements, things I want to accomplish, etc, etc, etc. I plan everything out in my head and, sadly, sometimes that's as far as it gets. Way too often, in fact.

Every Wednesday I make myself a list of to-do's. Wednesday is my day off, and thus a cleaning day. So I start listing to myself the things I need to accomplish. The morning (usually until at least 10am) is reserved for playing with Littles (aka Rachel), then there's dishes, laundry, vacuuming, sweeping, etc, etc, etc. It helps me to be able to check things off, also, to make me feel like I am accomplishing things. So last Wednesday I actually broke down the loads of laundry I had to do. It helped.

Lists float around my house like leaves in the fall - which is to say there are a lot. And they are about as useful as hair accessories to a bald person. Inevitably something else comes up that HAS to be done and I end up discarding the list and just doing what has to be done. Or not doing it. Sometimes I just pretend it got done. Sometimes I pretend I no list existed (thus I did not actually miss anything). Sometimes I just give up. Today... well today is probably a mixture of both. I'm still (haha) working on things but I might have to pretend some of what I wanted to get done was not actually on the list, because I will not get to it. Especially sitting here posting on my blog (which is sometimes on the list and has its own list of Things I Want To Write About).

However, as usual, my daughter has woken up now, and thus I am probably done with today's post. Next on the list - start another load of laundry and practice with Rachel how to walk. :)

(Image Credit: To-do list borrowed from FamiliesWithAPurpose.com.)