Like pretty much every mother I know, I struggle with finding a balance in life. Between kid time and grown up time, between housework and hobbies, between doing too much and not doing enough. But here's the thing...this is not new to me. Ask my mother - she was always telling me I had too much on my plate. Of course, back then it was plays, cheerleading, chorus, dancing...you know, school stuff.
Now I find that I have days when I can't focus on anything for more than five minutes, because there are too many things I want to do. So what happens? I end up accomplishing very little. It's frustrating as all get-out! But does this stop me from wanting to do more? Of course not! That would make way too much sense. I'm on the board of our local community theater, plus I write and distribute press releases for them, am on the show selection committee and directed for them earlier this season. I'm trying to build a part-time acting career by going to local auditions when I can. And along those lines, I've even gone to auditions for some non-paying gigs in hopes of building up the resume to get better offers. I have two kids, one of whom is ADHD and on a special diet (it's called the Feingold Program and allows us to manage his symptoms without meds - feel free to ask me about it) - N (my daughter) takes dance classes, A (son) has weekly basketball. And of course, they each have their parties and play dates to get to. We have a dog and two cats - but I would have more pets if M (the hubby) would let me. I'm a sucker for animals.
Doing all this stuff is mostly fun for me. But the problem is - it's like pulling teeth to make myself keep up with the household chores. And outdoor stuff? Fuggedaboudit. It's not that I don't care how the house looks, inside and out - I just have the hardest time finding the motivation to actually DO it. And all of my other activities don't exactly help.
Although today, my focus was forced for a whole 2.5 hours. I was called in to sub as a teacher's aid at my daughter's preschool. This is always a huge dose of cute! I love being able to see how the little ones spend their mornings and I get exposed to lots of different kidly personalities. Of course, it also usually means that the whole rest of my day gets thrown off track by the change in routine. But today, for once, I actually managed to get some stuff done afterward. I actually ran errands and got the kids' school valentines sooner than the day before their parties, managed to get myself less behind on the laundry (which reminds me, I need to put the sheets in the dryer), loaded and ran the dishwasher and finished clearing the kitchen peninsula (can't call it an island, 'cuz it's attached to the wall on one end) of papers. Who knows...after 37 years of teetering, maybe I'm finding my balance after all.
Nah...today was a fluke. But I can still enjoy it!
No comments:
Post a Comment