The busy season

Today's 100 words:

 

Christmas is only two weeks away, and I haven't done much to get ready. The kids and I picked up a few presents for daddy, but that's been the extent of my preparation. Today after church we'll buy our tree, and then hopefully this week I'll find the time to buy more gifts and decorate. There's just so much to do, and I get stressed thinking about it. Every year I vow that the next year I'll be more organized and shop early and not have to stay up all night on Christmas Eve, yet every year is the same.

Stress

Today's 100 words:

December 1. It doesn't seem possible that it's already the beginning of the last month of 2011. As a rule, I dread December. I love what the spirit of Christmas represents, but I hate all the extra things that need to get done this month: the family pictures that have to be taken, the clothes that need to be bought before those pictures can be shot, the Christmas shopping that needs to be done, the Christmas cards that have to be written and mailed, the last-minute gifts that need to be purchased and wrapped... It's a lot of stress.

A special weekend

Sunday is my daughter's second birthday. Even though I knew it was approaching, I feel like it snuck up on me, and now I'm paying the price: last-minute shopping for gifts and baking supplies, last-minute decisions about what a soon-to-be two-year-old would like for her birthday dinner, last-minute everything... Tomorrow is gift-buying day and cake-baking day, and I'm crossing my fingers that my oven, which has been working sporadically of late, will accommodate a tired, stressed-out mom and bake the cake.

Even though I'm not really a baker, every year I try to make special cakes for the kids' birthdays. Last year, I made my daughter a doggy cake, and throughout the years I've made my son a Motherboard cake (a character from PBS's Cyberchase), a Wubbzy cake, and a Pooh cake. My daughter's cake was the subject of my 100-words exercise this morning:

Growing up, I had birthday parties every year, but I had only one "official" party, complete with friends and games and party favors. I can't remember how old I was, but the pictures show that I was probably turning seven or eight. That year my mom asked her friend to make me a Barbie cake, and I remember how excited I was when I saw that cake for the first time--Barbie looked beautiful in her purple cake dress! Tomorrow I'm going to bake a similar birthday cake for my daughter. I hope she'll be as excited as I was.

So that's what will be happening at our house this weekend: lots of stressing out, but lots of celebrating, too! What do you have planned for your weekend?

Time to make the doughnuts bagels!

Today the kids and I did something we've never done before: we made homemade bagels. We followed this recipe, and although I can't call myself a baker by any stretch of the imagination, the bagels actually turned out quite well. They were lopsided and kind of ugly, but they tasted good, and that's what counts, right?

I found it relaxing to bake with the kids. Usually I'm stressed out, wondering how I'm going to fit everything I need to do into the nineteen or so hours I'm awake each day, but today I decided that I was going to put everything else aside--writing included--and spend some quality time with my kids. As someone posted in my comments yesterday, my kids are still young, and they need me now more than they ever will. I want to be there for them, do things with them, create memories that they'll never forget. My writing is important, but there is a season for everything, including writing. I'm certainly not going to stop writing, however; I have to write. I feel compelled to--and more importantly, I enjoy it.  What I'm going to try to do is stop stressing out about it--stop worrying about word counts and pages written and edited. I think that now is the time in my life when I need to focus on more than only my own desires, and if I can just relax a bit about what I want to do, I believe that things will fall into place.

As it is with so many things, I'm sure this resolution will be easier said than done, especially for my type A personality. When the hard days come, I'm going to focus on how much fun I had making those bagels with the kids, how nice it was to enjoy "real" time with them, time that wasn't spent at the dinner table or in the car driving to storytime or the grocery store. When it's kid time, I'm going to focus on them--and not worry about my writing projects.

I can write when we're done making those bagels.

Not enough hours in the day...

I've been riding on a bit of a high these past few days because of the small writing successes I've had. (I had another feature today at SMITH Magazine!) However, today I've also been bogged down by all that I need to do and never seem to have time for: the Christmas decorations that still need to be put in storage, the boxes of books I need to sort through, the papers that need to be filed, the closets that need to be cleaned...  The list goes on (and on). I'm sure I'm not the only mom out there whose to-do list seems to stretch out to infinity.

However--and this is a pep talk not only for me but for all moms--the fact of the matter is that there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do everything. We have to choose. We can care for our kids, cook dinner, do laundry, run errands, and clean the kitchen, or we can care for our kids, cook dinner, vacuum, wash clothes, and mop the bathroom floor. But the point is we can't do everything in one day, and I think the best thing we can do when we feel burdened and even paralyzed by all the tasks before us is to remind ourselves of what's really important--family. After all, what matters most, spending time with our loved ones or having a spotless floor? I find that if I take care of my family first, I somehow find the time to do the things that need to be done each day. And all those other things, those tasks that I never seem to have time for, the ones that hang over my head? Well, I've decided that they'll get done when they get done, and I need to stop stressing about things that I can't do immediately. They'll wait.

So tonight I'm going to spend time with my family instead of sorting papers. I'm going to take a little time to write and recharge once the kids are in bed. And I'm going to stop worrying about the things in life that really don't matter all that much. Who cares if the boxes of Christmas ornaments are still piled on our bedroom floor? They'll get put away eventually. But those little children that helped me put those ornaments on the tree? They need me now--and they have me.