Enough

I should be making my Ultimate Thanksgiving votive candle holders right now.

Let’s just think about that statement for a little bit.

I am actually making myself feel guilty for not tending to my votive candle holders for The Ultimate Thanksgiving, which takes place in seven days.

This is although I got a grand total of 4 hours sleep last night (although not all at once), have guests coming in from the states in two days, haven’t blow-dried my hair, haven’t blogged in ages and ages, and have a 7-month-old, high-maintenance diva of a baby in the next room who is currently interrupting her full-body catapult practice and backwards scooting for a short snooze.

And I can make myself feel guilty about votive candle holders? Honestly? Will the show not go on if I don’t have the stupid votive holders finished? Will the food be any less delicious? Will life be any worse?

I tell ya, it’s not always easy being me. And yet it’s my own fault. I really tried to eliminate “should” from my vocabulary and replace it with “could”. I really try to meditate once a day and practice non-hyperventilatory-breathing. (I made that word up.) I know I need new affirmations. I should write new affirmations. But then again, I should vacuum. I should nap when the baby naps. I should get in some exercise. I should PUT. A. LID. ON. IT.

You can tell I’m frustrated with myself. Do you know how much I beat myself up for not blogging, especially when I’m out on a walk with Baby Lovely and I see a million things I could write about? Especially when I know that blogging is a very important way for me to keep my sanity? But no…I’ve turned it into just one more thing to feel guilty about.

It’s time to go back to work.

You heard me. It’s time.

My maternity leave began as a really fun free-for-all of accomplishments. Aside from my cankles and heartburn, I was pretty darn adept with my big belly and filled my everydays with painting, decorating, renovating, blogging, sleeping, being creative, and accomplishing. (Interspersed with frequent runs to the local commune and the doctor’s office, as you will remember.)

But now, as much as I love Baby Lovely and want to see her every single “first” – I’m painfully aware that I may very well miss her first word, her first steps, her first bump on the head – this staying at home thing is just getting the better of me. And although I know going back to work will be stressful, and the days will get even shorter, I think it’s time. Time for me to cross something off my to-do list once in a while. Time for adult interaction.

Time for peeing with the bathroom door closed.

But that being said, last night I tossed and turned while thinking of the heart-wrenching moment where I would leave Baby Lovely at day care, screaming that hysterical scream that she uses when she’s with strangers, and me having to maneuver my car on our narrow country roads while sobbing. Only to have to pick her up an hour later with her first fever, or vomiting experience, from some bug she picked up from a snot-nosed kid handing her a thousand-times-licked wooden ice cream cone from their play grocery store. I need to get the flu shot. She needs the flu shot. But I hate the flu shot. She’ll be fine, go back to sleep, I say. I should sleep.

Stop saying ‘should’. 

After an hour of fretting, I was actually relieved when Baby woke up crying an hour later at 3:30am. It gave me something to do other than lay in bed and worry.

See what I mean? It’s time.

With that said, I’m going to try to suck up every moment of my remaining maternity leave (about 7 weeks) and just enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.

Will you help me enjoy?

And with that, I leave you (again), for I am being summoned.

Sometimes, it’s easier to tend to a crying baby than to put up with the multitude of possibilities I have during naptime.

Now that’s how I define “anxiety”.