Let's see if I can do that.
The theme of this post? My weekend.
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| Good lord, that's beautiful! And yes, that's my finger on the right. |
I've begun recognizing that entire weekends alone with Maybelle don't work well for me. Or for Maybelle. I can do all kinds of interesting, stimulating stuff with Maybelle, but if I'm alone doing it, I feel...bored? Tired? Fearful that I'm not capable of being a single parent? All of the above. I need friends to be with me.
So I'm experimenting with more weekend planning. Saturday was excellent! Conseula and her kids came over, took me grocery shopping, and then we all went to Hampton Park to feed the ducks. Conseula managed to hide her fear of the ducks quite convincingly.
Then a little later in the day Uncle Trey took us to the ocean. I quickly learned that I can't mention a beach trip to Maybelle until the very second we're leaving, because when I told her at 2:00 that Uncle Trey was getting us in 30 minutes, she walked out the door.
"Ocean! Ocean!" She couldn't hide her outrage when I told her Uncle Trey wasn't here yet.
When we got back from our ocean time, she and I were both worn out--like, sitting on the couch guzzling out of water bottles, staring at the tv worn out. But we both rallied after we ate a bit. And by "rallied," I mean that she didn't fall asleep while I was giving her a bath. She managed to let me get her pajamas on her first.
Finally, after Maybelle was asleep, Leigh came over, brought Vietnamese food for dinner, and we sat on the couch and talked and talked and talked. After Leigh left, I acted a bit like Maybelle: managed to get my pajamas on before falling asleep. Well, okay, that's not totally true because I was wearing my pajamas already when Leigh came over. You know me, such a classy host!
It was a full day, and helped me feel that I might be able to transition successfully into this new phase of my life.
Alison you are doing so great!!! I am not a parent, but I really empathize with the bored tired existential anxiety of spending long periods of time with just kids. I think its so smart for you to take steps and find friends! Also such a fan of maybelle and her love of the ocean.
ReplyDeleteI loved catching up on your weekend -- and am glad that you're sharing your political and your non-political exhaustion. I, too, have had some exhausting weeks with all this medical marijuana publicity -- it's weird how one can get all the adrenaline from the attention, the "doing good" but that ultimately it wears you out utterly --
ReplyDeleteThat's true, you've been SO political! Making such a huge difference in the world.
DeleteWeekends ARE tough - I could pull the house back together so we're not drowning in filth, but that's neither fun nor relaxing, I could relax in front of the TV or (gasp!) with a book and let the children's minds melt on cartoons (why is it I think it's OK for me to veg out w/the TV but not them?) but then there is Guilt, or we could Venture Out but then I'm still exhausted and still being smothered by the house. But I do feel like a better parent on the last so…? Balance-balance-balance. Nasty little 7 letter word.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you had a lovely weekend though! And any time anyone brings you food it's a huge win so YAY!
I wish you lived here! Or I lived there! Think of the fun we'd have vegging in front of the tv and shooing our children away to do something valuable.
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