Stick a Fork in Me
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” –Ann Lamott
Stick a fork in me, I’m done. Mothers of two year olds, it is my sincere hope that the perceived light at the end of the terrible twos tunnel is real for you, because for me it was all a mirage. This “threenager” thing is real, my friends. I am so grateful that a sweet friend took Eloise pumpkin picking and to play this morning (thank you Toni!) because I am toast. It has been the kind of week where I hide from my kids in the corner with a wheel of brie.
Whenever the going gets rough, I always find myself craving simplicity, and a glaring area of my life that I think this can be achieved right now is technology. I’m not a big technology person but I’ve been feeling too plugged in lately. I’m generally not on my phone much during the day, so once the girls are in bed is usually when I catch up on email/social media, etc. And am I the only one who gets spontaneously curious about random things late at night and I just NEED to research them immediately, which then leads me down a rabbit hole resulting in me going to bed way too late?
Unplugging is always good for my soul, and I’ve been trying to be more mindful of actually turning off my phone at a reasonable hour each night, reading whatever book I’m working on (currently this one), and getting to bed early. I’m sort of an all or nothing person though (an abstainer) and it’s hard to find guidelines that I can stick to. I’d like to have a set time each night that technology goes off, but this approach isn’t always practical depending on what we have going on.
In addition to going to bed earlier, I’ve also started to try and wake up before the girls. I read something the other day about waking up FOR your children rather than waking up TO them. I’ve been inexplicably waking on my own around 5:45 lately, so I've been using that time to sneak downstairs, put the coffee on, do my morning devotional, and set out breakfast for everyone. It has been something I’ve tried on and off for a couple years now and I always start the day on a much more positive note with a clearer head when I stick to it. (Except for the day this week that I made the grave mistake of setting out Eloise’s vitamins on her plate rather than let her take them out of her vitamin holder herself. That wasn’t a good day at all. HUGE disclaimer to my professed Duralex love: yes, they are fairly shatter-proof with normal usage, but when your salty threenager Frisbees it across the room in a fit of rage, it will break EVERYWHERE and your kitchen and all adjoining rooms will be covered with glass. But we won’t talk about that day.)
Speaking of breakfast, what do you feed your family, or yourself, in the morning? I feel like our breakfast is always the same old things, and we are usually cereal + fruit or English muffin/cinnamon toast + fruit people, and Eloise often has oatmeal. And for me it’s usually a yogurt, split three ways and finally finished up by mid-morning (aka mom starvation diet). I’d like everyone to have a little more protein in the morning, but the girls usually have yogurts for/with lunch, and aren’t big fans of eggs, so I’m not really sure what else there is.
Another breakfast-related item: The other morning I was still a little groggy (probably one of the mornings I didn’t practice the aforementioned getting up early habit) and couldn’t deal with one more person talking, so I put some happy oils in my diffuser, put on the “Praise Baby” Pandora station, and we had a totally tolerable morning complete with Mimi Jeanne’s adorable arm dancing. If there’s something she loves even more than bacon, it’s the VBS CD we play in the car, and “Praise Baby” fit the bill. Eloise said, “This is happy music!”
And on a final oils-related note: I had a good mail day this week from Lacie—thieves household cleaner! This is the best-smelling stuff, and cuts through my children’s greasy fingerprints even better than my typical vinegar-in-a-spray-bottle. A little goes a long way, too, so I’ll be using this forever, even though I’m a compulsive counter-sprayer. Highly recommend!
Here are some links I’ve liked lately:
Might be time to make some charts. I will try anything!
5 Rules for Hosting a Crappy Dinner Party. LOVE this!
Happy weekend!
