I often think about what my dear friend, Diane, once told me about parenting… the highs are really high and the lows are really low. This can easily apply to life in general, too, I suppose. The past few days I’ve been wanting to post about what we’ve been up to as a family, my usual daily photos of Theo, and to talk about all the adorable and smart things Theo has been saying and doing lately. But you know what? Life has been really tough lately and I’ve been exhausted.
The light of every day is obviously Theo. Waking up to that sweet smile, and those amazing and silly morning conversations can’t be beat. They almost always melt away other worries, cares, grogginess. And I’m thankful for that. My god how I’m thankful for that and for him every second of every day.
I looked back at the blog to this time last year and I noticed (and remembered since I lived it!) that this time of year was tough then, too. Is it just me? Is it the awful, dragging on of chilly temperatures and gloomy skies leaving us a little stir crazy and out of sorts? Maybe. I’m sure it contributes. It’s not just the parenting exhaustion that comes from having a young child who is back on the nap protest train again, or the constant parenting vigilantism that requires me to constantly remind Theo how to ask me for something, how to talk to me in his regular voice, that he can’t drink juice all day long, that we need to do X in 5 minutes, and then in 2 minutes, and to chase him to get his pajamas on half the time, and to sometimes have to (still) guess what he wants for a meal, and all the while also loving him 100% and making sure I’m saying things the right way, being empathic, making sure he knows that I understand how he feels when his enchilada spills all over the floor because the stupid kid-friendly fork sucks. I get it, parenting is HARD work.
Lately, though, we’ve been thrown for more loops. Mice. We have killed seven in the past two weeks. Yes, it’s disgusting. Yes, we are moving. We started looking right away and now we’ve pulled back a bit to look for May 1st. It makes sense for us for many reasons. Still stressful. We thought we resolved the issue but about every other day a new one is caught on the glue trap. So then we are faced with the looming challenge of finding a decent 2 bedroom in this insane NYC market. Honestly it makes me doubt why we live here. Do you know I look at an apt that had no living room for $2000/mo? I almost punched this guy in the face. Still awaiting two preschool responses in two entirely different neighborhoods so that weighs on where we look.
And all the while I’m working part-time, juggling a couple different things, planning a gigantic wedding reception party for me and Jay in June, and hoping to get pregnant in the midst of all of this. So, there you go. The realness of our life these days.
The good thing is that Theo is none the wiser about any of it. Despite him saying (with his arms and hands in sort of a shrugging motion), “we have a mouse problem”, he doesn’t seem to care much or notice any big deal about it. I cherish my life with him very dearly but I think it’s important he knows there were struggles, too. We are doing pretty much everything to create a happy, fun life with endless possibilities. I know he feels it but some days you have to stop and admit you’re not perfect, admit that this job is tough. I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been doing anything. Maybe it’s my age? Or maybe it’s just the truth of the highs and lows in life, and in parenting.
Either way, thank you Theo for being the light in my life despite the challenges. I will take those high-highs any day even if we have to share with the occasional low-low.