A Horse Of A Different Color

It's been a bit of a moment since I've written about my life, sans any hot topic views. It was suggested to me that a lot of you are OVER politics. So in the interest of variety, this post is just gonna be about ... me. #luckyyou

I have a family of 5 now. 6 if you ask anybody else in the family, but in my opinion, you don't include the dog in your dinner reservations. (Even if he is bigger than all your kids combined.) Our life is ... A LOT.

I've heard that in parenting, "The days are long but the years are short." - This couldn't be truer in my current chapter. We have a general schedule, and there are many times in the day where climbing to the next hour or task is as depleting to me as getting to the summit of Everest. (Or so I can imagine.) Chaos is synced: The baby cries when the toddler is tantruming, and the eldest is mid-schoolwork. The dog barks because, why not? I'm not the greatest multitasker, and these bouts of mayhem tend to throw me into insanity. But they pass, and before I know it I find myself tucking kiddos into bed, feeling some inkling of sadness that I didn't get more time with them. (Okay fine, and some inkling of happiness because I can finally watch something other than cartoons!)

I've always been a bit of a perfectionist. A short six months ago you could find me mopping my floors ... daily. If there was a mess, I was ON IT. The house stayed clean. Life was organized. The kids were always dressed well, and I usually was too.

Three kids has shifted this expectation for me. And I won't lie, at some point in my pregnant exhaustion, it upset me. I fought myself on getting the messes cleaned - fought myself on taking better care of it all. Fought to be "perfect". I'm not completely on the other side of this battle, but I am certainly on my way. I don't mop daily anymore. Sometimes there are weeks between mops. (And if that sounds like I'm still fairly clean, keep in mind that I have a projectile spit-upper.) I find my toddler shoving veggie straws and apple slices down the air registers, hourly. (And in case you are wondering why I'm not stopping her, it's usually when my back is turned putting out some other fire.) I find that I am more and more - just laughing it off, digging the junk out of the tunnel, and carrying on.

We recently went on a 12 hour road trip with all the kids and the dog (Crazy, stupid ... or both?) - on the tail end of the trip our son smelled pee. Knowing that it meant our toddler had leaked through her diaper, we stopped. I climbed in the back to multitask and nurse the baby, and while my hubby went to unbuckle the toddler, she yakked. The car seat was covered in pee and barf, and to my absolute surprise, my husband and I just kind of, shrugged it off. We leveled up in parenting that day, for sure.

So that's us. Sometimes I feel like I am "just" a Mom. Hanging out at home, a little island, trying to keep at least some of the corners of my house clean while controlling the circus that is our family. And some days, I feel like because of me, and through them, I am changing the world.

And as for the politics. I guess I've found a new passion. I can't apologize for caring about it, because I just do. But maybe from time to time, I can change my tune. And so today, I'm offering up a horse of a different color.