more than just okay

Sometimes I wake up and I think, "I hate everything." And I don't, you know. I love lots of things. But every night I'm like "Wooo party!!" and watch things and read things and eat chips and act like a teenager on summer vacation, and then the morning comes and it hates me.

And the children, who I begged God for, who I would walk through fire for, should that unlikely request ever come up, those same children are so awake, and so loud, and so childlike, in the morning. So the challenge is waking up without having a deep heartfelt prayer that it already be bedtime again.

It's not what I envisioned, with the dreams of morning baby cuddles and healthy breakfasts, lying together in a pool of sunlight, talking about our dreams for the day. Instead, I lurch around, make impassioned pleas for quieter voices, pour off-brand cereal and look for a corner to curl up and mourn in, but am usually sidelined by someone needing a diaper change, immediately.

About 10:00, life begins to look up. I do homeschool, Lord willin, and that rolls into lunch time, which rolls into our strictly enforced "quiet time" (not quiet, per se, but in another room, so quietER). Then it is 3:00, and no one is going to bed until 8:30. So I pilot through those hours, trying to be kind, to be welcoming, to be present, but I know I'm faking it, a lot.

I want to do it differently, to really enjoy my days. I have seasons like that, where I don't feel loopy and tired and my back hurts and I'm desperate for space. I'm sure it's part discipline, with sleeping the right hours, and part dietary, where I eat disgusting things that HORSES would eat, and part spiritual, where I have a deeper life than just googling spiritual mysteries to explain to my 4 year old, because she "needs to know". It just seems like work, so much work, to be disciplined.

I used to hate it when people talked about stuff like this, when I was waiting for a baby. It felt so ungrateful, in light of my loss and dreams, for lucky moms to gripe about their blessings. That's why I've got to throw in the disclaimer that this is my dream life, and I love it. I love every day with my kids. But sometimes I'm too tired and grumpy to think about how much I love it. I love it.