Merry Go Round

Too much.  Sometimes life seems too much, in more ways than one.  Life spins round and round too fast.  When will the merry go round slow down a little, to a better pace, where there is more room to come up for breath?

It’s not just the busyness.  Although, it might help if I would stop signing the kids up to participate in all these amazing-sounding activities that arrive in my e-mail inbox all the time (e.g., a cow eyeball dissection class at the library, which truly was very educational and a fantastic experience for Meredith).  

I really do try to say “no” to things.  I try to limit our regular-weekly activities to one or two things each season. Other than Meredith’s weekly art class, the girls have done gymnastics and AWANA together this spring.  That is reasonable, right?!  But life still seems too busy, and too full, too often. 

Like I said, it’s not just the busyness that is overwhelming. It’s also the emotional things that I deal with.  It’s the constant refereeing.  All three of my girls have strong opinions and ideas and the younger two are especially type-A.  Kevin and I have been watching Downton Abbey on Netflix, while he does physical therapy exercises, and I love the mother’s quote, “No one tells you what it is like raising daughters.  You think it is going to be like Little Women but they’re just at each other’s throats all the time!”  Everything is a competition. 

One child seems to have some sensory issues a little bit. She is either extremely hot or extremely cold.  The smallest scrape sends her into fits of hysteria, so that you would think she had her arm chopped off.  Sigh.  As much as I try to constantly point the kids to Christ and mold their character, some days it seems like the efforts are just not paying off very well, especially concerning one particular child.  There is a lot of complaining and whining and immaturity from this particular child.  I feel weary and inadequate lots of days.  I usually have the kids by myself for about 12 hours a day and Kevin has to work some Saturdays to keep up with his litigation deadlines.  A lot of days it’s all I can do to get through the basics—basic school, cleaning up the messes that result from an active toddler, trying to keep the peace, trying to hold on to my sanity.  It has been a really trying spring, can you tell?

Today the older two girls and I attended a performance of Charlotte’s Web at a local college. It was a field trip we signed up for last fall.  Since we read the book last year, the kids were looking forward to it. I was feeling so tired, I was getting drowsy during the play. 4 ½ year old Clara was antsy and kept digging in my purse to try to find gum.  (Maybe she is still a little too young to take to these kinds of things?) Then we rushed back to grandma’s house to pick up Sophia so that we could take Clara to the plastic surgeon for a follow-up appointment.  

When the doctor removed the steri-strips, I was more than a little discouraged.  The scarring seemed really bad to me.  I know that beauty on the inside is what really counts, right?  But will this be a particularly difficult self-image hurdle for Clara to overcome? Some days I feel like I might not survive the preschool years. How am I ever going to raise three teenage daughters?!  And now one of them might have a massive scar between her eyes to deal with?  Yes, this seems really vain.  But, I’m just trying to keep it real.  

All of these thoughts are what was whirling around in this mother’s mind today.

The doctor wants Clara back in two weeks so he can do dermabrasion on the scar and hopefully that will help a little bit.  He was concerned, too.

Kevin has knee surgery to reconstruct his torn ACL on May 4.  My parents and two siblings will come for three weeks on May 8.  Clara will have dermabrasion done May 9. 

I don’t think the merry go round is going to slow any time soon.  I will just have to hold on tighter and pray.  Always pray.