Mommy is Taking her House Back

All I wanted to do was to drop them off at school. I had spent the last hour directing them to get dressed, and eat breakfast; not the usual eggs, but a simple breakfast, just cereal with milk. The older two ate theirs, mostly. The little girls ate some, then the youngest starting emptying the cheerios one by one onto the floor. I told her no.

The middle child, the youngest boy, was still upstairs declaring that his stomach hurt and he couldn’t go to school. It took a phone call to daddy (who was driving to work) to get him down the stairs. Then he didn’t want to eat breakfast. He said that it hurt to eat. I knew he wasn’t sick anymore, yesterday he was perfectly fine but I let him stay home one more day anyway, just to be sure. Today was the day everyone had to go to school. It had been way too many days of sick rotating through everyone in the house, and the chaos was getting overwhelming. Baskets of washed laundry were waiting to be folded. Piles of dirty laundry are waiting to be washed. The machine had been constantly running, trying to keep up with extra sheets, and towels, and clothes. The same comforter got thrown up on and washed twice, two days in a row.

Usually on Monday, I get them to school, and then start the laundry, washing, then folding, making neat piles on the bed, then emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the breakfast dishes, picking up around the house. Making beds.

The last 5 days have been survival mode, just trying to take care of sick people. I have been avoiding the back of the living room, the toy area. The buckets have been turned over, spilling out over the space, growing outwards, embarking on the rest of the room, like a thick oil spill, slowing growing. How many times have I wanted to clean them up like normal, get them back into their neat organized buckets, and stacks, on the shelf? The toy rugs, perfectly squared out, arranged neat, then swept, and vacuumed. But I couldn’t. Every moment another person would throw up, or spill something, or the little one would pee. This morning, there was a big milk spill, and a pee, all within five minutes of having to leave the house. At this point I just wanted them out. Get to the car boys! Get on your shoes and coats. Get your back pack. GO!!!!

They are gone now. It’s Tuesday. It's finally quiet. The dishes from last night are in the sick. The baskets of laundry are waiting to be folded. The two girls are in the living room playing with the toys. I am going to start. I am going to get things back into order. Everything is going to get back into place. Mommy is taking her house back!

Yoga defragmented my brain

Yesterday, my peaceful, calm friend Linda, who is also a yoga teacher, came over for a session. We stretched, we downward facing doged, we breathed, we closed our eyes. My muscles trembled, they worked, and I relaxed. I felt chi in my hands, pins and needles in my feet, and work in my legs.

I enjoyed the yoga, and mostly I had set out for the purpose of strengthening my core without injuring myself. But yoga also did something else. It defragmented my brain. Today I am an organizing machine. I attacked the closet in the baby’s room that was piles of boxes, and bags, filled with clothes, blankets, stuff to keep, clothes too big, clothes to small. Everything had originally started out in separate organized piles, each for a purpose. Over time, clothes would just pile up, some would fall behind the boxes, puzzle pieces would land on the floor, and sometimes, (wince) I would just open the door and just throw stuff in there! But today, I approached it, not as “the project” to do someday, but peacefully, and happily, and the decisions were not hard. Usually, I can’t decide quickly what to keep, what is sentimental, what to give away. Today I filled an entire huge box speedily, and without much thought. I even put my beloved boppy in there, which I used to nurse all five children – with only a moment to pause and think, then decide that if someone else can use it, it is serving a better purpose than filling up a space in my closet. I can only attribute this liquid organizing experience to my Yoga class.

Yoga also undid something, 10 years of motherhood, months of morning school drop off, getting five kids dressed, fed and ready in the space of one hour (and not killing them in the process). Waking up at 4 am with a toddler that will only have mommy, and that needs to be snuggled back to sleep so as not to wake up the rest of the house. The hurriedness of pick one up here, drop one off there, clean the house before the cub scouts arrive for the den meeting – that starts a half hour after dinner!

Today, I am calm, I am whole, I am even blogging – after 2 years off. Thank you Yoga. Namaste!