Monday, March 22, 2010

Head Meet Wall

I struggle. The balancing act of motherhood is taking its toll on me.

The last number of years I have spent working diligently to gain the exposure that has brought me to where I am today in my career. It has been taxing beyond belief yet I managed to pull it off --- most days.

There is a routine to my life that is family, work, work, work, self care, sleep. Family, work, work, work, self care, sleep. Repeat over and over again. I work A LOT.

My new routine is family, care for baby, work, care for baby, care for baby, care for baby, self care, sleep. And repeat.

I find it difficult not to work, at my core is a drive to be on the go and moving forward at all times.

Lately I feel as though I am going no where fast.

It takes so much just to get the simplest things completed. What four months ago what took me ten minutes, now takes upwards of an hour. This makes my head spin.

I miss my pace and I am challenged when it comes to scaling back. My goals are lofty so you can imagine how this all is affecting me.

Being a new mother again is all that I wanted and the little man sure is all shades of awesome.

But I find myself wanting to put my head through a wall some days.

Today I had a To-List of items that really needed to be done. The day started off well and then just turned into a gong show.

The baby projectile vomited all over me twice and all over the floor twice, with a big fat SPLAT. Instead of napping for his usual hour twice, no such luck, each nap was only ten minutes at best. This was the day he chose to be suddenly clingy, not wanting to be out of my arms. At fifteen pounds he's heavy to haul everywhere. I even had to sit him on my lap when I needed to pee. There was no way that I could not give him what he needed, so instead I gave up on my To Do List and focused completely on him.

Then at bed time, he had a melt down. He screamed for forty five minutes. Unheard of, so uncharacteristic of him. He screamed, I sighed loudly and repetitively. Jason stepped in and finally got the little fellow to sleep. Which of course made me feel like a big ole failure.

Is it so much to strive to be successful in my career, raise two kids (one a teenager & the other four months old), be a wife, run a household, travel, and feel accomplished?

I can do this can't I? Sure I can, if I try hard enough and learn to prioritize better. Surely this is possible. Because if it's not, I may as well give up trying now and save myself the heart ache and disappointment attached to letting go of my dreams.

Let me find the strength to move forward with tomorrow, because today sucked the big one.