Do you ever struggle with balance?
I would say that I do, but to say that I struggle would mean that I sometimes win and sometimes lose. And when it comes to balance, I always seem to lose.
And I don’t know where to draw the line.
I am of the firm philosophy that our children deserve the best of us. I have chosen to quit the workforce and stay home full time with my girls. As such, no one else is there to teach and nurture and engage and direct them all day every day. Just me. So it’s my job to do my solemn best.
But then there are days when TJ walks in the door and I am practically shaking because I have not taken a single second to myself over the course of an entire month. There are days when I so desperately want to play a phone game or read a book or watch television for fifteen minutes, and it’s in those times that I most realize that I don’t do that. I don’t take fifteen minutes to myself ever during the day.
My kids have a Leapad, and I have iPad and iPhone games for them, and we obviously have a television, but as long as I am feeling okay, I don’t let them use those things at home much at all. I don’t want them to become dependent upon them. I want them to learn to use their imaginations and their minds as a way to relax and unwind. I want them to experience rather than consume.
And so I read every. single. time they want a book read. I get them art supplies. I teach them how to sew. We make window clings. We weave potholders. We color. I take what they say seriously and engage in conversation every single time they have something to say – and that is pretty much every single instant they are awake.
And I would think that all of these things are good. They are part of my responsibility as a mother. I don’t do anything that any other mother doesn’t do. But honestly, at this point and with the way things are playing out, I worry they are becoming a weakness.
I haven’t taught them that mommy gets balance. I haven’t taught them that not everything revolves around them. I haven’t given them a role model of a well rounded whole person. We never even have clean laundry because I can’t find five minutes in the day to bring the dirty clothes the fifteen feet to the laundry room.
And so where do I find the balance? I honestly have absolutely NO idea. But it has to be found. Before I implode.