The Days...

It feels like some days the energy is buzzing with love in my home...Finn is smiling and giggling, I am almost (and sometimes literally) dancing around doing the housework, and then I look around, the sun is shining through the windows, an upbeat bluegrass station is playing on Pandora, the house is clean, everyone is happy, and there is time and weather to take it outside for a hike or play with chickens.  These days are amazing. Adventure is to be found everywhere, and the Restless Spirit is, for the moment, completely content.

Then there are days where I feel as though I'm barely staying caught up, and days where I'm simply NOT at all.  Where frustration is pretty prevalent, blood pressure is a little higher, and the Restless Spirit is having a tough time in the midst of Domestic Monotony...there is a lot of resetting, deep breaths, and mantra repeating.

I'm trying to meditate and ponder on what makes these days different.  What is it that contributes to the down days, and what can I do to at least ride out the lulls, if not completely jump out of it and into a more cheerful disposition.  For Reid's and Finn's sake, at the very least.  I haven't come up with an explanation on what contributes to the lulls, I'm sure it's any number of things: lack of sleep, the latest bug going around, Mercury Retrograde, gloomy weather, hearing someone being mean or judgmental to anyone, etc...sometimes we are all just out of sync.  Nothing else really, just off timing.  Like three watches ticking away at different intervals on different wavelengths, with three people trying to catch up to the other one.  Nothing to be done but accept it, laugh about it, and move on.  I wish there was a day time reality TV show that showed "A Day in the Life" of mothers these days.  How they manage it all, and get through the "out of sync" days.  I would totally get in to a show like that.  Real Housewives isn't cutting it for me.  Most days we do one episode of Andy Griffith, my hero, and listen to Pandora the rest of the time we're inside.  There is something so blissfully simple, so innocent and good, about The Andy Griffith Show, that just has me in love with everyone...nostalgia is a powerful thing, but I digress...

So, a few of the things that really help me kind of snap out of it, and I'd love to hear any others you may have, are:

• Dancing, dancing, dancing.  This is the cure all for me.  I put on Micheal Franti or Tom Petty on Pandora, and let go.

• Finn usually nurses to nap, and is pretty easy about letting me move him to his corner of the couch to finish sleeping after he's done.  If I'm having a rough day, though, I will just let him sleep in my arms for as long as I can, just studying his little face.  This is another cure all for the Messy House Blues.  It gets me back to the present moment, and what's really important.

• A few pages of Calvin and Hobbes.  Again, nostalgia is working in my favor here.  As a kid, I used to find a little of myself in both Calvin and Hobbes.  Now, I totally see myself as his mom.  But this comic really calls my attention to the vastly different world of children, and allows me to be more empathetic with Finn if he's the one having a bad day.  And I know what he's doing all day.  I can't imagine putting this into perspective when he goes to school... 

•  Meditation, or prayer.  I love the saying that praying is how we talk to God, and meditation is how we listen to him in the silence.  A combination of these two work wonderfully for me.

• Getting outside.  Even if it's putting on full rain gear and standing in a storm in the driveway for five minutes.  There is something deeply cathartic about nature.

Just a few things that work for me.  I was chatting with a girlfriend today, thinking that I'd been at this parenting endeavor for over a year now, some days I feel like I should have a better handle on it.  She assured me this isn't the case.  So for any of you feeling the same way, you are not alone.  And I keep repeating the mantra...love.  It's all about love.  If you genuinely want the best for your child, and are doing the best you can, that's all that can be expected of you.  The rest is just details.  And enjoying those dancing-love-buzz days when they alight upon you magically.