A beautiful week, a busy week, a week full of activities…and I hit bottom today.  Survival mode is what is keeping me going.  There is this itch and inner desire for my kiddos to make each day one of growth and learning. 

Monday we had playgroup at our house.  Tuesday and Thursday we hold preschool in our home.  Wednesday we go to the Library for story hour, and to the Bumble Bee park afterwards for a picnic lunch and more fun friends.  Friday is fairly open.  This week we rode our bikes to Grandma’s house, got to see a new cousin who was born on Monday, and the grower and I rode back home as the designer drove the older two kiddos home.  Our mornings are full.  After lunch we have story time and naps.  Then it is time to cook dinner.  This of course is the hardest time of the day, for everyone is hungry and tired.  But some how we manage.

I have been pleased with how wonderfully everything has gone and how much fun the kiddos and I have had together each day.  But apparently, I needed a break.  When things with the kiddos got hectic this afternoon, plans altered, and the designer calling from over an hour away, asking my opinion on selling our Highlander, my brain just couldn’t handle it all.  Ya, you could call it overload, or a breakdown.  Either way, the designerwas not pleased with my reaction, and I was obviously not ok.   

Later, as we talked about what happened, what I was going through, how I reacted to everything, I saw the problems.  I’m discovering that when I am at my wits end, and I do not know what to do, I go into pilot mode, but this is not a good pilot mode.  It is one that I saw modeled all my life.  The one I am desperately trying to overcome.  The bad traditions I didn’t realize I was embracing. 

Like many, I began breaking the mold as I began college.  I was soo eager to learn, to discover what I was really made of, my talents, my capacity to learn, experience, and grow.  Over the next 10 years I felt like I was discovering the real me.  Not the one I had been raised to become, but the person that was really inside.  

After the designer and I married, and began life with our darling kiddos, obviously, things have become more complicated.  There is less time to plan, prepare, and ponder.  Some days I worry that I am the only one not using my brain!  When things get tough, I find it difficult to think about the real me inside and who I am trying to become.  In an instant, I find myself reacting in ways I have been so trying to avoid. 

The more I learn about my kiddos, the more I want to change about myself.  So how do I do it?  How does one combat a day like today where the overall feeling is one of failure?  How can I pull back the pieces of this shell that I do not desire? 

I guess that is why this site and theory is just so important to me.  I need to see daily delights, progress and change.  I so desperately require time to rest, ponder and time to prepare.  I need to see that I really can be that person I so desire to become.  That it really is a possibility.  I don’t have answers today.  I just want to change, and I need to think about it some more.