4 o'clock

I see I have had 40 views of my last post! Wow! If I knew people were reading then I would probably post more often. Comments people? If I know you are there it might motivate me to keep updating. Okay so this next post might come off sounding a little negative but it is something I feel can be true for a lot of people, not just moms and since I have nothing else to write about this is what you get for today! You know that time of day. The time you wish never came each day. The time you have to force yourself not to keep looking at the clock wondering when it will be here and when it will be gone. It is currently that time for me and it shouldn't be that hard for me to get through, but by this time of the day I feel like all the energy and life has been sucked out of me. I could play ANOTHER game of hide and go seek, or read "that" book for the 10th time today, or go for another walk outside but I just don't want too. This is the mundane life of the stay at home mom. I know that sounds bad but I would probably say the same thing if I was a working mom. I stay busy at home doing things that moms do. Some days are great and we have lots to do. Some days I just wish I had a fenced in backyard and could have the boys play outside where they can take their fights, their noises, their whining where I can't hear it. For someone with very little patience I actually handle these daily battles better than I thought I would. I try not to yell. I try not to show how annoyed I can be when one of the boys has to whine about every little thing. These daily battles always seem to multiply by 10 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I still have 4 hours until I can put them in bed and have a few hours a peace and quiet. I'm tired, I am board(I hate saying that), but I really am. I try to get creative and find fun things to fill our time but those things get old to me too. Maybe not as much for the boys but for me, my ability to "play" has run dry. late into the afternoon. I often wonder what other stay at home moms do all day? I'm sure it is different in every home. I just can't be my children's only source of entertainment for the whole day. I want them to know how to play on their own for a few hours at a time and they can on most days, but there is always some sort of fight or one of them hurts the other and I have to go in and kiss the wounded and separate them. TV can be a nice option at times but not one that I want to use very often at all. In fact, the less the better. Having somewhat of a daily routine has helped, but don't most routines get to be soooooo mundane you have to break it up with something different. Knowing whats about to come up all the time can become so dull and I don't want the boys to grow up thinking they will always know what to expect all the time. I guess it can just be somewhat hard to mix it up during the week. We go to the library on most Mondays. That usually lasts about 10 min after they have tried to pull every book off the shelf. We go to the park on nice days. We walk around the camp almost everyday. We watch a show after nap time. We build forts. We play out in the yard. We even sometimes take a bath just to play in the water. I would love to have more play dates with other moms who are at home. It helps me connect with another adult and gives my kids a break from me as well as a break from being somewhere other than home. I miss my friend Andi who lived at the camp. She and her husband moved a few months ago to pursue a calling from God and headed to Dallas to study a year at Pioneer Bible Translators. It was so easy for Andi and me to get together often because we lived a couple hundred yards away from each other. Our houses were usually messy but we didn't care. We just understood each other and what life is like for a mom. Sometimes we would just drop by unannounced and see what the other person is up too. I loved that! I loved knowing that when I came over, even if she was in the middle of something, she would drop it to visit for a few minutes and I was usually not up to anything so important I couldn't drop something for her. (miss you Andi) I still need to get out more by myself or with friends which I am pretty bad at planning. Realistically that isn't as easy as it might be for some. I don't have very many people who can just take the boys whenever. Joe is more busy these days working at the camp and at the church and once he is home at night I don't necessarily want to be away from him when I haven't seen him all day. It is all a balancing act. How to take time for me so I don't become a crazy lady and how to balance my time with the boys, doing chores, time with Joe, time with God and time with friends. I can't be a mom without sacrificing a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of peace and quiet, a lot of money, and a lot of time doing other things that I love. It is part of being a parent where I need to find joy. I didn't understand much about sacrifice before becoming a parent. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it and didn't have to think much about anyone but myself and Joe. I don't wish away the smallness of my children at all. I find them to be precious, funny, daring, risky, curious, playful, unpredictable, adventurous and most of all the two beings in my life besides God and Joe that loves me most no matter how unattractive I may look on the inside and out. Kids bring out the crazy in me but they also bring me to my knees more than ever before. They force you to grow and want to be a better person. They give you a sense of how not be too boring, or too clean, or too quiet, or too dense. They have a way of making life something you never expected it to be. The only thing that is to be expected is this hour of the day. 4 o'clock. Make it or break it. I guess it is up to me.