At the end of the Labor Day Holiday, as I anxiously started gearing up for a busy and short work week with tons of extra curricular activities on my plate to handle, I wondered at the challenge of getting to the end of the coming week with everything done.
I have a tendency to get really worked-up about something before I attack the situation and get it taken care of. I obsessively visualize what needs to get done, and imagine the logical order to accomplishing what I need to do. Sometimes I even make physical lists to follow. I had already started this exercise, but a rough Monday night with my youngest son up most of the night crying proved that the week was not going to go as I was working it out in my head.
When one of my sons turns up sick, I’m the one who usually has to flex my workload so I can be available to play Florence Nightingale. The luxury afforded by working remotely from home, is I can do that. It’s exhausting those days when I spend all day entertaining and taking care of an ailing child then have to squeeze in work time while they’re napping, and after my husband gets home. I now had to add Take Son to Doctor to Check For Ear Infection to the now overwhelming looming list of ‘To Do’s.
Instead of readying for hosting the annual kick-off gathering of my women’s group, organizing and tagging our cast-off baby items for a consignment sale, preparing for my first sprint triathlon, writing articles for Empowher, and working overtime on manuals in addition to the usual homemaker duties, I was graciously reminded by this act of God, Mother Nature, whatever-you-believe-in, about what is really important. It was as if I could hear my own mother saying like she always does when I’m getting excited about something, “Slow down, little one.” There was something else to consider, so I readjusted my focus.
So I replaced all the hats I planned to wear, and firmly attached the Mom hat. We couldn’t get in to see the doctor until the end of the day, so I helped usher my baby boy through soul crushing wave-after-wave of crying sessions, and frustration tantrums. He couldn’t sleep, and wouldn’t eat, so he just cried. The doctor checked his ears and found nothing. He listened to his lungs, again nothing. He asked a couple questions, and said, “So he’s not sleeping or eating? Is that unusual for him?” Yes it is, so they checked his throat. Sure enough, it was positive for Strep. It would require another day at home, and antibiotics to get him back on the path to good health, and back into daycare. I’m relieved the doctor found something, sad my son had to go through the throat swabbing and now the medicine taking, and glad to have had two days to focus on my baby instead of all the drudgery of life that swirls around our family. I'm happy to report my little one is back to climbing on anything he can, bothering his older brother and the dogs, and running around the house squealing.
My work will get done, I have let go of the consignment sale until next time, and the women’s group gathering will be fun without me making a huge fuss over it (my husband also took pity on me and offered to clean the basement). I haven’t had time to consider the ramifications of doing my first triathlon, but now I’m looking at preparing for the race this weekend and haven’t worked out a lick since a short run last Saturday, I’m officially terrified, but I’ll get through it. I have been allowing myself to ‘carbohydrate load’ a bit, and actually have lost a couple pounds from not working out, which proves to me that I’m in better shape than when I started five weeks ago. I’m praying that the congestion I am experiencing stays away enough so I can do my swim, bike and run.
I have come to a realization that I’ve had before, that I try too hard working on being who I think I should be, and a person I want my sons to look up to. I should focus more time on just being me and being with my family.
My sister came across her old copy of “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” by Richard Carlson, Ph.D., and had read and shared with me a passage in it describing a scale of 1-10, measuring the stressors in life based on how much it will matter in 10 years. It stated the majority of things that are worrying us today will not matter in a few months, let alone next year or 10 years from now. She was stressed-out too, and we both took her finding the book and that passage as a timely coincidence that should not be overlooked. Funny how there is peace in what initially seems like a complication.
Christine Jeffries is a writer/editor for work and at heart, and lives in a home of testosterone with her husband and two sons. She started a women’s group, The Wo-Hoo! Society, in the interests of friendship, networking, and philanthropy; the group meets separately on a monthly basis in the Phoenix and Kansas City areas. Christine is interested in women's health and promoting strong women.