The build up and the let down...and beating the bus!!

So many things swirling around in my head today.  So many days of trying to keep the balance of calm and somewhat collected in our home for everyone...not just me.  So many doubts find their way of creeping in and so many concerns continue to arise.  You could apply this to any part of anyone's day but for me today...it is seeming to hit on all six parties at once.

Schedule and routine is a great thing but then it becomes a curse.  We fall victim to time lines and trying our best to divide ourselves into three different people so we can deliver everyone to their activity so they will find joy, excitement, and a stronger them.  Meanwhile we are secretly cursing ourselves for over committing, over extending, for forgetting how to say, I'm sorry no we can't.

So we build all of these activities up in our heads, in our kids heads and many times the event falls short.  We have missed the mark, there is not the connection we are hoping for.  Then the tough job starts, and we as parents have to try our best to light that fire within them, help them find the spark, the passion, this entire process is exhausting.  Day in day out...exhaustion.  As I move from one thing to the next with my kids there are many days that I am just depleted...last night my 12 year old told me at 9:30...just go to bed mom.

So yes...yesterday was a long hard day.  The weather was summer like, we played outside, went to swim lessons, and had dinner together at 5pm but that was the only time we would all be in the house at the same time.  They rested their sweet little fresh smelling heads on their pillows and were out in less than five minutes.  The sun rises...and we do this all again.

I find myself talking with friends and other parents that find themselves in this same circle...and how to keep themselves going.  It is so very hard to keep that smile going, having the soft kind loving words for a child after they didn't hear you the first five times, to be excited about making dinner again, to clean up dishes again, to then make lunches again.  This time in life for a parent of four littles is just hard.  So then someone will say how do you find the time to work out with all of that?!?  My support system is one like no other...that would be my first response-without that all of this would most certainly not happen.

I don't consider myself superwoman, I don't have a secret plan of attack every day.  I set my sights low for the day...don't want to feel like a mom failure starting at 6:30 in the morning.  I wake my girls, they give me morning breath hugs and kisses and for that sweet two minutes, our day is starting off perfect.  If I can have that each day...a moment when we are

all at peace...that is my baseline.  I needed five miles today per my training plan.  It is a rainy dreary day here and it was going to start up with the weather just after 8 am.  So today I played "beat the bus."  I have done this a handful of times, the girls' school is exactly two miles from our house.  The path I run is right along the road that the bus takes.  I have yet to beat the bus...today was a different day!

The principal was standing outside the school waiting to greet the students as they unloaded and sure enough I was standing there before my girls stepped foot off the bus.  Mrs. P. suggested that I may need a shirt that says..."Beat the bus!"  The kids unloaded and all of them were smiles and disbelief that I did in fact today beat the bus.  "Wow Mrs. G you really made it here first!"  "I saw you when we turned in and you were already here!" "Mommy you did it!"

So I don't have a perfect plan of making each day as fulfilling for EVERYONE as possible.  But I do try my best to incorporate what makes me whole into the lives of those around me.  I hope that they see my passion and determination and they can take a piece of that and put it into one of their activities, maybe give something another try without having a full on melt down first.  I know that things will not meet their mark, including people letting you down, but I know that we can all try a little harder despite how exhausted we may be.  Hard is just that...hard...not impossible!

Embrace the suck...Choose you...beat the bus!!