When Marty and I were first married I was working full time as well as going to school to finish my degree. We had just bought a house, he was in his first year of starting a business (aka working 100 hours a week and making almost no money), and I was pregnant. Life was really busy and really stressful. We were both gone from six or seven in the morning until nine or ten at night, and then had more work to do once we were home.
I was mentally and physically stretching to my limits almost every day. (My body was literally stretching to it's limits... ha-ha-pregnancy-joke).
Then I had a baby.
Imagine with me for a moment that there is a square.
And that each of the edges of this square are the full extent of every emotion that you have ever felt throughout your whole life. Now imagine someone takes that box and STRETCHHHHHES it as far as they can. That's what motherhood has felt like for me.
I am emotionally and spiritually stretching to my limits almost every day.
Yesterday and today were tough days for me. Funny enough, it has nothing to do with concern about Peter's limp. It mostly is due to these tiny, little, itty, bitty TEETH coming in.
My seven month old is getting her seventh tooth, and FOUR of those came in over the last two weeks. What the heck?
Peter is my "tough" child, and Carolyn is my "easy" one. That's the program. That is the program unless of course, she is teething. For a girl who is always happy, she has a terrible pain tolerance. Teething was barely a blip on the radar with Peter, but Carolyn whines all day long when she teethes.
Every little whine and cry and baby-need takes me a little closer to my limit throughout the day. Some days I don't get stretched to my limit until 11 pm, some days I don't reach it at all, and SOME days I reach it at noon. Those days make for a bad day for everyone.
I've had people ask me if it has been difficult going from working full time to being a stay at home mom. They want to know if I miss all that 'the outside world' has to offer.
And I do miss it. But I have yet to miss it enough to not wish I was here. And I have a hard time believing that anything but 'the inside world' could cause me to reach these limits.
Why do I even want to reach those limits? Well, because when I say that I reach my limits every day, I'm mostly talking about my limits of frustration, or patience, or selflessness. But I'm also talking about the limits of my joy. I don't believe that I could reach those in any other way.
And even on the bad reached-my-limit-well-before-bedtime days like yesterday and today, these two can STILL squeak a smile out of me. Here are some of those joyful moments.
Watching Peter try and "help" feed Carolyn:
Watching Carolyn work on this cute little inchworm crawl:
And that time I thought for just a moment that I had a child prodigy on my hands:
