#mundanemumdays: july 12, 2021
Despite having better than usual naps, my baby cried for 90 percent of the day. He cried when I picked him up and when I put him down when he squirmed to get out of my arms. My toddler screamed at me and, in a moment of overwhelm and weakness, with a baby crying in the background, I yelled right back at her, scaring the both of them, making them cry, hating myself (and scaring myself too because who is that person who just yelled at her kid for doing the exact same thing she just did). We went to separate rooms so I could calm myself, then we repaired, apologized, and made plans for how we’d do things differently next time. Things aren’t usually this way. It’s not our normal, but sometimes life just catches up and we all break.
The days have become increasingly mundane. Life with a toddler and baby during pandemic is enough to make you go crazy at times. And even though the world is slowly beginning to open up I feel stuck. Staying home has become comfortable. Easy. Normal. Getting out with two young children by myself feels impossible at times and not worth the exhausting effort. So I don’t. I stay home.
I try to remind myself that this is such a short season and that before I know it, I’ll feel more myself, things will get easier, I’ll be more up to getting out and about and living life for me too. But it’s really hard to see out when you’re deep in it, even if you’ve been through it before and know for 100% fact that it gets so. much. better.
As I come out of the forth trimester, I’m still exhausted beyond belief. Physically and emotionally drained. I don’t thrive in this stage like others might, I shine later on, with more sleep and a predictable schedule. Running on little sleep and no time to care for myself, I often spend my days unshowered, cleaning the same messes, making the same lunches, playing the same games, reading the same books, nursing in the same chair, putting the baby down for the same naps, changing the same diapers, wiping the same tears. It’s the very definition of mundane and it’s enough to make a person go a little crazy sometimes.
But.. in the mundane there is also so much beauty…
There are the times that she makes up crazy stories at the breakfast table giggling to herself as she tells them to the point that they are no longer coherent.. times when she makes him belly laugh like never before, times when he looks up from nursing and stares right into my eyes and gives me the biggest smile. There are dirty feet and messy hair, dirty dishes and unmade beds and toys and laundry scattered everywhere as little (or big) reminders of the tiny people who live here with us and bring us so much joy everyday.
Despite the joy they bring, at the end of the day I find myself not loving life that much right now. I have very little time to be a human outside of being a mother. There is no balance. And it makes me sad sometimes. Ok.. it makes me sad a lot. I miss me. I was just getting back to her, and finally in a place where there was more balance, and now, I’m starting from scratch again. It’s ok. He is worth starting from scratch. So in between the baby crying and the screaming toddler I try and focus on those good moments. The ones that make your heart burst open with so much joy you question why you feel anything but. Those moments keep me going. They keep me sane. Those tiny beautiful mundane moments will keep me going until life feels a little more balanced again. I know it’s coming. I know it’s about to get so good...
