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| Kid art is going great and not related to this post |
Hi! My name is Rachel and if I wasn't me I would compare myself to me and feel bad about it. (EDITED TO ADD: what I meant was that when I read my own posts sometimes I think "oh wow that person has it all together!" and then I realize that person is me and I do not have it all together. It wasn't meant to imply anyone should feel bad about not being me... if I was less tired I could think of a better way to word it.)
I do try to do a good job blogging the bummer bits of life, as well as the good bits. I have no problem with stream of consciousness "parenting is hard" posts. But then, sometimes parenting isn't as hard and things can still feel blerg.
Here are some non parenting things that are not going great:
Sleep
Yesterday one of my happy things was my current reading life. I *am* reading a lot now and that's great! But one of the main ways I get lots of reading done is by waking up multiple times a night and not being able to get back to sleep... I hate 3:30am on the clock. We've also had some kids wake ups on top of the me wake-ups. I was at about 6.5 hours average sleep for the past 2 weeks and that is not enough sleep for me.
Last night I slept through the night and it was great.
Exercise
My exercise is going OK this year but only on work days, I cannot figure out how to fit movement into kid days. I mean, I could be doing exercise right now instead of blogging, but I'm not. Sometimes, at great effort, I get a 30 minute Peloton ride in during twin nap while the big kids watch a film with Andy. It's a lot of effort for 30 minutes of sport. So at most, I am exercising well on 4/7 days, and fewer if I go to the office.
Mornings
Maybe it's the aforementioned sleep, but I cannot get up in the morning. I used to be a 5am morning person. Now I wake up around 6 or 6:20 and then don't want to get out of bed and then sometimes do get out of bed but don't want to start anything I like doing (ie a blog post) because any kid could get up at any time. This morning I got up at 6am and started writing this blog and now twins are awake at 6:30 and I don't know why because this is so early for them.
In general I would rather not try to have morning time than try and fail to have morning time.
Birthdays
I have a weird relationship with birthdays. I don't think I really care about birthdays, but also last year I did the ultimate not caring and didn't really celebrate my birthday at all. It was my 40th and it was on a Saturday. I took Lily to a play date with people I didn't know very well and didn't mention it was my birthday. Lily did mention it, which was awkward. I did a Peloton ride with a friend which was fun and we had the same friend over for pizza which was fun but it all felt a bit... forced? Or like it wasn't measuring up to some birthday metric, doing a live peloton ride at 9am shouldn't need to be reserved for a 40th birthday, and neither should eating pizza with friends. But also, I didn't plan anything better or more, and didn't have the headspace to plan, so that turned out to be my 40th. A mostly at home day.
In retrospect, I didn't want to be disappointed with my 40th so I pretty much planned for disappointment and it was all exactly as planned. Is that success? It felt like even more pressure at the time because it was my 40th birthday and it was on a Saturday. People asked if I was having a party. I generally didn't tell anyone it was my birthday.
AI has now informed me that I will never have a round number birthday on a Saturday again. My next Saturday birthday will be my 140th. If I want to celebrate a milestone on a weekend, my next "milestone" birthday will be my 75th on Sunday January 25th, 2060.
All this to say, Birthdays are odd. I would love to be a Birthday person who plans a big things and enjoys stuff, but I am not that. Maybe it's because January isn't the time for planning big things?
After some more AI-ing it appears my 45th birthday is a Friday. Maybe that birthday will involve a trip somewhere sunny.
Photo Albums
After 5 years of consistently updating my photo albums monthly I am just... behind. I havent started the kids new albums (each kid gets their own album which runs from birthday to birthday). Lily's needs updating from September, the rest from October. I fished all their current albums and then... stopped. Our family album runs through November (not as bad as I thought!) but needs December adding and then Printing. It just feels like... a lot.
I could stop now, but it also feels a bit unfair that the big kids will get yearly albums from ages 0-7 and 0-5 and the twins will get 0-2 only. I think I need to carve out some time to just get caught up. Once caught up it's about an hour or an hour and a half a month.
Social Life
This is totally on me - I am tired. I don't feel like seeing people and doing stuff. Over Christmas I think we had one too many play dates and my desire to "hang out" went negative. Normally I am all over the "people are a good use of time" mentality. I usually love having people over, doing stuff with people, going out to a meal, grabbing a coffee... but right now my social battery feels drained. And then I feel worse because I have texts from people I like wanting to hang out and the limiting factor to our hang outs is... me. I hope I get back to social soon.
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I'll stop there on my list. I've got no great solutions, but I have started time tracking again because I am feeling very time pressured (and like I have no me time) and I'm sure that's not true. Hopefully I'll get some more time & energy soon and then I can tackle some of the above.
Do you have things that are not going great? Want to swap some things with me? Are you a birthday person?
This is Lisa - blogger won’t let me log in! I think sleep is the linchpin for a lot of this. If you aren’t getting enough sleep, life is really hard, especially with small children! And I think you should give yourself more credit for working out 4 times/week. That is my goal. I think about how Laura Vanderkam says ‘3 times a week is a habit’. I used to work out more than 4 times but I did not have small children. We just don’t have all the hours in the day available to us! It’s hard to get up early and fit it in, even when sleeping well, because of how tired we are. Plus we are, well, older moms. Maybe if we had our kids in our late 20s and early 30s, we could spring out of bed at 5 and workout and live our best lives. But I think that is just not possible when we are kind of approaching middle age and perimenopause, etc etc.
ReplyDeleteBirthdays are tricky. I turned 40 in Feb 2021 so there was no pressure to do anything since we were in lockdown and I had a 2 month old baby… I am having my first true bday gathering in 6 years this year for my 45th which falls on a Friday. I am having a low key drop in puzzle party which feels right for me. I like that it’s in the afternoon and it’s a chill activity that I enjoy. It’s easier for me to do this because Phil can take the boys to his mom’s. It would be trickier if we had a napper still.
But all that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You are doing great!
Can confirm that life has a lot of non-parenting blerg moments. F*** 3:00 AM!!! My sleep is better after a really horrible spell, but I still wake up regularly at that time and can't get back to sleep. I see you and I feel you.
ReplyDeleteI also don't like my birthday. It's at the beginning of the month, which was also prime work time for an accountant, so I could never take it off. The worst part was that my coworkers would always ask what I was doing for my birthday...um sitting here with stress coming out of every pore and thanks for rubbing it in.
Anyway, happy birthday anyway and I hope that a nice chunk of Rachel time pops up unexpectedly.
It is normal for your desire to be social to wax and wane...and as Lisa said, lack of sleep can really tank that. Plus we just had several months of intense opportunities to be social (winter holidays). So a break from that desire seems right on schedule. I bet you'll swing back to feeling on top of things and like seeing people again after a little time hankering down. Be nice to yourself. You deserve it. <3, rachel
ReplyDeleteOh my, do I feel in tune with you! Sleeping poorly, check. Behind in family stuff, check. Not knowing how to celebrate birthdays without feeling awkward, check. My only difference is I am up early most days (usually wake at 4 or 4:30 am, try to go back to sleep and up moving around at 5:15 am because I don't go back to sleep). Maybe look for a half-birthday day to celebrate - the weather is better, people may be out of school, etc. I have a Summer birthday so mine is easier to plan for outdoor stuff, but I always feel weird throwing my own birthday party. But, as adults, no one else is going to do it for us, right? Hope the sleep gets better and happy 41st! I think all healthy ones are milestones for me from here on out (I'm 57). Lol...
ReplyDeleteI'm not really a birthday person. I feel very Meh about the whole thing, but birthday's weren't a big deal in my family growing up. I'm just realizing now that I'll be in *checks mental calendar*... DENMARK for my birthday this year. That works well, since it's the one time in Europe we'll be visiting family. And I will be seeing YOU within like a week of my birthday, so that's cause for celebration.
ReplyDeleteI feel like lots of things aren't working well for me right now and all of it feels too complicated to write about since I've been awake since 4:00 am. I think sleep issues and this infernal weather (currently -25C) and the world falling to pieces all play a major role. But onward and upward. I aim to do a few things every day that bring me joy and then I'm hunkering down and waiting for this season (literal and metaphorical) to pass!