Sometimes You Need a Break
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Summer bike rides with the boys lead to little discoveries, like a rocky creek shore in the middle of the city
I took an unintended two-week writing hiatus this month. Life has been full of a lot of good moments lately. And parenting a two-year-old has its days of exhausted joy that doesn't leave much energy or time for typing out words on a screen. My quiet moments alone, normally spent writing, have been given over to napping or over-due housework.
Life happens. And I'm ok with that.
The past few weeks have also been wrapped up in the anticipation of new beginnings - starting to facilitate a church small group, organizing our CSA drop-off, and finalizing last-minute details for our trip to England and Ireland. And in the middle of it all, we decided to start potty-training.
Just when I thought parenting was challenging enough...I'm teaching my toddler to use the toilet. Hello, stress-bomb.
SoI'm learning to give and take - that if I say "yes" to one thing, I have to say "no" to others, or ask for a lot of help. Last night, after two long days at work and two long nights without sleep thanks to a crying toddler, I asked my husband to take care of Declan in whatever way he needed overnight. I was putting my ear plugs in and going to sleep. At one point, I heard him crying but resisted the urge to get up. I'm not essential all the time and every time; my husband is perfectly capable of handling whatever drama was going on in the room next door.
On our way to pick strawberries
And that's a good lesson for this overachiever, over-manager to learn - God gives us community because we can't do it all. That community may be your colleagues at work, your church small group, your parents-in-law and siblings, your next-door-neighbor. Parenting is tough work. I need the empathetic laughs and stories from my coworkers about their potty training disasters. I need to know it's normal to feel frustrated and how to cope with it. I need time away alone with my husband and the ability to trustingly ask my family to care for my son while we're away. I need to believe that dirty dishes can wait, if what I really need is to be strengthened by reading the words of Jesus.
So that's a little picture of what I'm learning this month. Sometimes I need a break, and it's ok to ask for it. And if blogging flows out of the abundance of the life I'm living, it's ok to let it sit and wait for me to be filled up again. No guilt anywhere.
Spending Mother's Day at the City Market (and on a train)
Have you ever felt this way? How are you learning to lean on others?
