Trying to Handle This

Lately, I have just felt like I am just trying to stay afloat. In all honesty, "I am not a strong swimmer"so this analogy is very fitting. I am constantly trying to find time to initiate chore charts, create new and more functional patterns in our day, have the sanity of cleaner home, but time and time again the boys will literally give me the run around, and then it's just back to surviving the day. I have conversations with friends, with family: "this is just a season of life, you have to give yourself a bit of a break, be patient with yourself," but when you have a laundry list as long as I have of things you need to improve, change, or just plain do at all it becomes overwhelming. And that has been, in a nutshell, my life in the last couple weeks. I am wanting to be the best version of myself. The version of me who has some of pre children qualities, the one that is easy going, and always wanting to go and do new things, the one that practices singing for hours, and writes and plays the piano, and then the best version of myself as a mom, the one that can organize at least one thing every day, clean one room every day, has breakfast made for the kids as they awake, and have chores lined up afterward, and they happily do them with enthusiasm and promptness, the mom that is smiling in awe at her children and they smile back, that I always speaking calmly and I am heard. The best version of a wife, the best version of a daughter, a sister, a friend, and when you are trying to do all this and realize all the things you need to work on, and where do you begin you will be exactly where I am sitting right now. Sitting, with a permanent expression like Jim from the office slapped on my face. 

Sure, the boys are cute, funny, and fun, and sweet, and really quite nice actually, they still add a lot of crazy to my life. Which, depending on the day I can love the crazy or really not love it at all. But, on days like today which is the opposite of the day I described above, and Kaj comes into my room and tells me he wants to sing me a song to make me feel better with Josh singing back up at his side, and they both proceed to make up as they go a long, "because you are really nice mom, and today is really fun, and we can have fun today..." and so on and so forth I think to myself, " I must be doing ok."

what I love about this picture is that you can tell Rowan has a smile on his face as he watches Josh from afar