The days are long. I had a wonderful reprieve this week when Tim and Abby took Alice for several hours while Jack was in school, to thank me for watching their girls the day before. In my past life I probably would have rejected the offer, but I am just so starved for time to accomplish anything at all these days, that I took them up on it. It was exactly the coming-up-for-air experience I needed after months of no naps for Alice (she isn't taking well to quiet time either) and long work hours for Jared. It was absolutely glorious to spend several hours puttering around the house, taking care of so many micro-annoyances that have been begging for attention for months, but are always bumped off the to-do list by more urgent items. For the first time in . . . years(?) I reached a point in the day after maybe 5 hours of puttering when I thought to myself, "I feel good about what I have accomplished today. It is enough." And then when the kids came home, I played with them without anything nagging in my brain. I relaxed in the evening without scrambling frantically to try to "catch up" with the everyday things that need doing--a fruitless endeavor because this isn't a season of my life where I can ever really get caught up. So it was good to see that it is possible to get to a point where I do feel caught up and content, and all it takes is one day with five hours of alone time. Five hours of alone time is not realistic for me and won't be for years, but one day when Alice is in kindergarten, five hours of alone time will happen regularly. It feels good to know that this isn't where I'll be forever.
Something I will miss about this stage is toddler Alice. She is so kind. She says the funniest things. she is so perceptive and precocious. I am fairly smothered by her, but at least she is grateful and sweet and funny about smothering me, so that's nice. I'm grateful to have a big kid too. Jack came home from school while Alice was away that day earlier this week, and I was like, "hey let's read on the couches by the fireplace for a while." And he did! It was crazy! We just like cozied in and each read our own books by the fireplace for half an hour. Absolutely wild stuff to imagine a future when both of my kids would do that. Bittersweet watching these kids grow up, that's for sure.
We had our neighbors over for dinner this week for the first time! We have neighbors in the house next to us, and in the house next to them. One of them is due to have a baby end of the month, so that was a good deadline for me to hurry and get them over. We had a great time! Jack is the oldest, and then there are 2- and 4-year-old girls and a 2-year-old boy, plus Alice. The kids played spectacularly together while the rest of us got to know each other. It was an easy gathering and I feel so grown up and settled in having made that happen. I'm excited to be able to host in our backyard soon. In the meantime, the kids had no complaints hiking up and down the dirt piles. 10/10.
I am out of time, so let's get to some pictures:
