New Goals and Priorities

Lately I have been feeling unprecedented levels of stress.  And by "lately," I mean for months now.  You loyal readers out there may already have some awareness of that fact, due to a mile-long rant that I wrote a couple of months ago.  Well, my stress levels hit the roof again last night.  It is just one thing after another.  I am so over committed and stretched so thin trying to keep everyone happy lately.  I feel like I have to please everyone and that I can't say "no" to anything.  You know who I am becoming?  My sister Rachel.  Except that SHE is finally getting better about that stuff!  I sure hope our roles aren't reversing!  My good friend Ann and I are getting ready to do a jewelry sale during the first weekend in December (more on that coming in a post very soon), and I am SO. NOT. READY!  Every time that I can find a moment of peace I have to hurry and get dressed and brush my teeth, do the dishes, fold the laundry, check my email, make dinner, and so on and so forth.  I always think that I am going to have time to work on jewelry, but by the time that I finally sit down at the table to do it Callum is up from his nap or sick of entertaining himself and is now crying at my feet.  I am just exhausted.  Last night I had an emotional stress-out meltdown and called my dad in tears, begging him to fly out my sister Laura next week to help me pull my life (and, most of all, mySELF) together.  I don't really want Laura to come.  I want my MOM to come.  But that will never happen, and so my sisters are the next best thing.  Sadly, Rachy teaches and can't just hop on a plane, but, thanks to Sam being moved all over by the military for training, Laura wasn't able to teach this year, and is therfore at my disposal.  I am so glad!  Hooray for Laura not having a real job!  :)  Dad, of course, said yes, and Laura will arrive late Sunday night.  I can not begin to tell you how relieved I am.  I would have cried from relief, but I had already used all of my tears on stress and missing my mom.  Last night was the first night in over a week that I have been relaxed enough to fall asleep right away after going to bed.  I am so happy that Laura is coming.  SO! HAPPY!

As part of my reprioritizing, Logan made me promise to blog less until I felt that everything was a little more under control.  I think that is a good idea.  I have so many cute pictures to post and fun blog post ideas, but they will have to wait.  You will have to wait to see Callum's amazing new skill, to hear about my love for our new computer, and to see a post dedicated entirely to how much Callum loves his Dada.  Those are not all of the ideas that I have on my blog list.  They are just a few of the things that I will be putting off for now.  After this post I will have two more coming, both announcing things that I have been working very hard on, and then you may not hear much from me for a little while.  (That is, if I can actually exercise the self-control to stop blogging.  I just love having a place where I know that I am recording my family's memories!  I am a terrible journaler, but an excellent blogger.  Printing my blog out in books and doing my photo albums is my way of recording our family's history.) 

Part of my problem lately is that I feel so busy and stressed that I feel like I can't just PLAY with Callum and take the time to be a really good mother.  I hate that feeling.  He deserves better than that.  So I have made a new goal, and I am announcing it here for all of the world to see so that I will feel more committed to keeping it.  First thing in the morning is really Callum's best time of day.  He gets up around 6:00 or 6:30 each morning (Ugh!), and after he eats I usually go on to check my email, look at blogs, eat breakfast, etc.  In the meantime, Callum is playing sweetly in his room alone.  After being up for an hour or so he need his first nap.  (Which is typically an hour long.)  This morning I thought to myself, "Why am I allowing myself to miss this?  I am home with him full-time, and I still feel like I am missing his childhood!  Something is screwed up here!"  So I made a new goal.  Each morning I am going to just PLAY with Callum between his morning feeding and his first nap.  It is early enough that no phone calls or visitors will be interrupting, and I can excercise the self control not to turn on my computer until he has gone down for that first nap.  There is no reason that I can't wait until then to check my email!  And guess what?  We had so much fun this morning!  And, since I was dealing with the attention span of an eight month old, we got an awful lot done!  We read books, we played with puzzle pieces, I built and he destroyed many block towers, he giggled while I made his big teddy bear dance, we both put shapes through holes into a toy, we played with a ball-rolling toy that we have, we banged on some musical bongo drums, I taught him how to start trying to bang his toy hammer on his singing tool box in the correct way, and we chased plastic tubs and tupperwares across the floor---which, ironically, was his favorite part of the morning.  It was wonderful.  I can't wait to do it again tomorrow!