Sometimes I just don’t have anything more to give

I enjoy the 7.5 minutes of quiet while I drive to my office, and somehow I pep talk myself into focus and I’m ready for my day. I call, I prospect, I crunch numbers, I connect clients with other clients, I book business, and I have a successful day. Then I go herd the cats again…a one year old pickup (along with the download from the sweet teachers about his day) then a 2 year old pickup (along with the download from the teachers about his ..more challenging…day). Then I listen to the sweet sound of jibber jabber and giggles all the way home which is from time to time interrupted with a tattle about one or the other taking a toy.

 

Somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 (the hour in which 4 hours worth of housework, cooking dinner, feeding of children, and cleaning little hands and faces gets done) all hell breaks loose. I herd cats again to the bathtub and watch them play while trying to muster the energy to sing a bath tub song or talk about the colors of the bathtub toys. And I think again…I just don’t have anything more to give.

 

Pajamas, milk, “vie-dadins”, toothbrushes, books, “nudder” books, songs, kisses, “noses” (otherwise known as Eskimo kisses) and I get to lay those little heads down on their pillows. Then the guilt begins. I realize that I just made it through the past 2 hours alive, but punched out the nightly routine all while aching for the moment when the kids go to bed. I was a crazy person that morning for the 90 minutes that I got to see them, and I was a crazy person for the past 2 hours that I got to see them and in between I felt glad that they were at day care with someone else taking care of them all the while feeling guilty that I was happy to have the break. Now, here I am, kids are asleep and I feel guilty. I want to start the day over and just enjoy the precious little time that I get to see them. I have somehow forgotten that in the 3.5 hours that I did get to see them, they fought and cried and acted like…well, toddlers…and that I couldn’t wait to get them to go to sleep. So I tiptoe back into the quiet rooms and kiss each of their eyelids and whisper promises to them that tomorrow will be better…that I’ll remember to appreciate the precious few minutes that I get with them every day. I tiptoe out of each room and get to work on every other thing in my life. Then 6:30 am arrives and Baby G takes my 2 year old’s breakfast from him and the proverbial poo-poo hits the fan all over again.

 

Moms, How DO you do it?????????

 

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