recognizing limits…

It’ll probably come as no surprise to the 5 of you still reading that I’ve been running on fumes lately. David being out of town and trying to take on something currently energy sapping (exercise) all in the same week was enough to take me to the brink.

He came home, and we were talking, and I told him how overwhelmed I feel lately. Seems like the ever increasing list of demands just towers at times, and I want to hide my eyes when it gets that bad.

I asked him what he wanted to do on Saturday night, and it was watch a favorite movie. We made plans for him to pick it up after the boys got up from naps.

But after he got Seth up, he came into the kitchen, and casually said as I fixed dinner… “I’m not going to watch a movie tonight. I want to help you out with whatever it is that you need tonight. How about if I clean the shower?”

I dropped the knife onto the cutting board and burst into tears. And hugged him. And cried some more. There aren’t any words to describe my gratitude for his unselfishness…

So our Saturday night saw me steam mopping the Cheerio dust covered floor and him upstairs in our bathroom. God bless him.

I feel a lot better just being caught up. And I’m learning, very slowly, to notice the cues that tell me I’m taking on too much. I told a very loved friend that I couldn’t playdate today, even though I wanted to, because I had a sense that it would be too much for us. Seth was a new boy having Mommy to himself for a couple of hours.

I decided not to try to hit 3 stores before afternoon naptime after the toilet overflowed unexpectedly. Gotta readjust expectations, take a deep breath, and do a little less than originally planned. We went to one store, the most urgent one, and then we came home and played in the yard again.

It’s so easy to just try to do one more thing… but that one more thing is the thing that’ll send me over the edge. This needs to be a slower time of life for us, and I need to stop fighting that…. =)