It’s so rainy today, and I woke up in the middle of a dream to get B-Bug breakfasted and logged into school. My folks are taking a much needed (quiet) vacation for a few days, which means I’m 100% on point, which is surprisingly challenging. I’ve gotten so used to having at least one adult around, even if just in the back room at work, that not having that available certainly challenges my typical routine! Just taking a run flies off the table as an option, because I don’t quite feel comfortable leaving B-Bug alone at home, even if he’s in school (they pop on and off Zoom semi-regularly, so making sure he’s back at the right time is sometimes a challenge).
This week has been all about clawing my way back onto the bandwagon and re-establishing the most important of my writing/mental health habits. Some habits, like jogging, have fallen by the wayside due to general structural/supervision issues and a tweaked ankle ligament (though Monday I managed a 13:51 mile, including my warm-up walks, so not horrible!). But some habits, like reading at night, have started creeping back. Goldbug’s evening routine is starting to lock into place, which means there’s at least a chunk of time in the evening when I get to just hang out with B-Bug and Andy,and then a period after B-Bug goes to bed when I get to just kick back in the blessed silence. SO REFRESHING.
I was telling Andy, having small kids, particularly those under one, you have this sense of being both mentally tired AND physically tired. The physically tired gets moderately resolved overnight, depending on how the baby’s night goes, but the mental tired… It’s rare in our household that I can even sit down like this and compose a sentence without being constantly interrupted (I’m currently feeding Goldbug his breakfast which keeps him about 80% entertained), or really even complete a thought or a sentence without B-bug interrupting (we’re in that motor-mouth phase, which I don’t want to discourage, but SOMETIMES…) So that silence after both are in bed is just…precious. And I’ve felt a lot more grounded over the past few days since getting that opportunity for quiet. As an introvert, becoming a mother is one of the more challenging things I’ve done, because it involves almost never NOT being touched or talked at or climbed over or run into or yelled at–which after a while does wear you down a bit. That said, my boys constantly make me laugh and are so freaking sweet–it’s just nice to have a little break now and then, which has been hard to come by since A) baby, and B) pandemic AKA few babysitting options.
But the week has been good, even if the house is kind of a mess. One of our goals this weekend is to get B-Bug’s toys sorted and packed off in boxes we can pull out and put away as needed, so the entire house isn’t a toy box (all the more important because my father has some mobility issues, and toys underfoot are especially challenging AND me carrying the baby all the time means I don’t always see that truck in the way…). I’ve been looking up taking some math courses from our local community college, which I’m not sure I’ll be doing anytime soon, but eventually. I have so much to freshen up on, let me tell you! Years of avoiding math since high school have not been kind to my basic math skills. Yeesh…
Picking away at a story rewrite. Need to look at the novel rewrite again and hash out what I’m going to need to do for that come November. One of the habits I’ve been trying to re-establish is reading one story a day, which I haven’t quite gotten to yet, but we’re getting closer. My World-Building course on LitReactor is almost wrapped up, so we’ll have that done soon. Boy, some days I have to remind myself that it will get easier to think/write/edit. I did with B-Bug, and it will with Goldbug, but in the meantime, it’s quite a struggle. But every little bit helps, and if I can just get one more story edited and submitted, I’ll at least have hit all of last year’s markers (save bulk word-count, but this year was never going to be that year), and surpassed some, so really, all things considered I’m doing all right for 2020’s writing requirements. I’m just starting to think about next year, and what that’ll look like, writing-wise. If I can amp up the total word count next year and get a bit more new fiction out, I’ll be moving in the right direction. But not terrible, despite the complexities of this year!
I remember when my son was a baby. You are right you get both physically and mentally tired. Both were difficult for me to get rid of. My son would wake up at least once even at the age of 1.
I always had a hard time falling asleep after waking up (even after he grew out of it. Every now and then I still get insomnia episodes).
I am like you– and introvert, and my son is total opposite of me. I find it hard to believe sometimes that we are related. Haha.
It certainly can be challenging! We’re in quite the toothing phase at the moment, but I just try to remember that it’ll pass. My oldest was a good night sleeper, but he stopped napping at 10mo, so that was exhausting in a different way. The little one does nap, but the nights-!
It’s so funny how different our kiddos can be from us, isn’t it? Both my little guys are bundles of energy and I am so not! ^_^