So I was going to start this post off with the proverb, “Be careful what you wish for . . .” but now I’ve decided that that’s lame, and the universe didn’t give me a sinus infection to answer my request for a slower week. Okay, I’ll back up a few days. This past Sunday after waking at 5 a.m., writing up a storm, cleaning my house from top to bottom, working in my garden, and tending to my vermicomposter (those red worms need lots of coaxing to stay in their bed), I wrote in my “Gratitude Sunday” post that I hoped the coming week would be a bit slower. Slower, indeed, it was.
Monday came, and even though I woke up early to run, work on my daughter’s play box (a doubled reinforced box that our grill came in–I’ll post more about that later), clean again (sometimes I forget about the basement bathroom–I know that sounds yucky, but the only being who uses it is our cat Toby), and then spend time with our friends and their 3 kiddos. I managed to make it through the entire day with what seemed to be my average energy level, although my voice bombarded my nasal canal and I sounded a bit like Chandler Bing’s girlfriend Janice (remember Friends?). I tried reading a story to Annabelle and she closed the book on me. I guess she doesn’t like stories read by a woman who sounds like Janice.
Tuesday arrived and I insisted that I was in tip top shape, and that my strange sounding voice and the pressure in my eyes and nose were simply allergies. By Tuesday evening my husband and mother insisted that it wasn’t.
Now sometime between Tuesday and today, Wednesday happened, except I wasn’t really awake to remember it. I do remember waking up on Wednesday with a pounding head, dragging myself out of bed to drink orange juice (I believe in the magical powers of o.j.), and then begging my husband to care for our daughter while I buried myself in a dark cocoon.
When I woke up today, I tallied up all the sleep I’d accumulated in the 36 hours since I’d admitted that yes I had something more than allergies, and I realized that I had slept for 30 of those hours. 30 hours. Yup. Anyone who knows me personally can vouch for me that I am not a sleeper. I hate to sleep. Why bother sleeping? That’s my motto. But apparently between all the running, the running around, the night wakings with a sick and teething toddler, my body craved sleep like a pregnant woman craves pizza and ice cream. I soaked that sleep up.
I intended for my week to go slower. What I meant by that was that I needed to relax, to lighten up, to let go. To stop fretting over the cleanliness of the house, whether or not I am being positive enough when disciplining Annabelle (I am such a perfectionist sometimes that I cannot stand myself, and by the way, I read too much), the list goes on and on. Basically I just wanted a break from, well, me.
And I got it. It just came in the form of a nasty sinus infection that left me down and out for 30 hours. But I am feeling much better, and I am coherent enough to realize that rather than push myself to the point where I get sick as a dog, I need to balance my life and focus on what is important. So, if you made it to the bottom of this long, long post, let me reward you with a few good tidbits from API on-line about balancing your life and your family’s needs:
- Strive for Balance in your Personal and Family Life Attachment Parenting International
- Play in the Everyday by Carrie Kerr
- Parents Need Boundaries too by Carrie Kerr
- Making Cooperative Parenting Work: When Mom and Dad Disagree by Jennifer Scoby
- A Little Self Care Goes A Long Way by Karen Walant, Ph.D.
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