The Every Day

[written last week]

It's funny how I've gone from writing more often about less important things to writing less often about more important things.

One day I'm going to wish I had written about the every day life. I'll look back and wonder what we spent our days and our quiet weekends doing. How did we handle a one-year-old boy? How did we fill the time?

I already look back on the days he was first born and forget what it was like. J and I have to sit and really push our brains to remember certain details of those weeks. They may have been hard, but I want to remember. I'd like to be able to tell the stories one day. I want to have more detail than what everyone else says: "Oh, you're in for it!" or "Say goodbye to sleep!" Maybe these people have just forgotten the beautiful, yet difficult, little details of the every day. They're really quite extraordinary.

Many of my posts have been centered around Charlie--for good reason. But the every day routine centers around us: his parents. As J would say, I center C's world, and our family centers our day-to-day activities and motivations. J and I have figured out a nice common ground. It was rough for a month or two--just figuring things out. It got rough when Charlie was starting to move but not move--so he got frustrated a lot. This seemed to rub off on us--on me, mostly, and when I'm in a bad mood, the whole house seems off.

Things are calmer now, and the day-to-day is nice. I'm finding myself in a happy place.

We didn't go to church again today. We go when we can, but many times Charlie naps right around ten, and if he doesn't get that nap, he gets pretty cranky.

Yesterday, for instance, he didn't nap until 3:30 because we had a family get-together around noon. It was on the farm, and it was beautiful. I'll admit I still get overwhelmed at the amount of people in J's family (and many were missing); I love being around them, but after a while, I'm ready to find a place that's quiet. We had a good time meeting the cousins, but then we tried to take Charlie into the pool, and he absolutely hated it. He was red, even after sun screen, and he screamed. The water was a little cold, but I think he was just terrified of the amount of water around him, and he was panicking. I don't blame the little guy.

Plus he hadn't napped all day, and he was surrounded by a large number of people he usually never sees. When we tried to take a family photo, he and the other cousin who is 10 months old screamed through the whole thing. They're at the age where strangers scare them a little, and it was so evident! It stressed me out a little, of course. You never want your kid to be the one upset, but I also seem to handle it better than I expected. J was trying to get Charlie to slowly enjoy the water, and after I came back from going into the house, he was still holding him in the pool while he screamed. I had to intervene at that point, which showed me that I am a protective mother, and I don't care who judges me for it. In front of his family, I called out, "Justin, don't force him to stay in the water! Just get him out. He doesn't have to like the water today." I didn't even care that fifteen people were around seeing me getting irritated. I just wanted Charlie to feel safe again (and no, I'm not an overprotective parent--quite the opposite).

We went home and napped. I was absolutely exhausted, and I needed to sleep. C slept in his crib and I slept on the couch. J was able to stay awake to watch t.v. I then left to supervise prom and stayed until 10:30 or so, going to bed by 1 a.m. I was totally wiped out today! We stayed home all day waiting for it to storm, but it never did. We filled our time with little activities such as the following: dancing in front of the radio, opening and closing cabinet drawers, standing up and sitting down, crawling in circles, walking outside, listening to the birds and talking back, cuddling (rare moment of exhaustion), kissing foreheads that lean in, waving to each other, singing, laughing…a lot, dancing more, making fart noises with our mouths, spitting food out by accident while making said noises, laughing some more, eating yummy food, cooking, walking outside, and more. Charlie led the way, and we kept him happy. It was beautiful, and it always is.

Before bed time, we got out to drop J's car off because we're late on the inspection. Per usual.

Tomorrow J is driving me and Charlie in, and he'll come pick us up. We'll have to go grab the car and make it back to run by the grocery store-then home. Phew. I'm tired just thinking about it.

This week is also going to be nuts. We have something going on every single day after school--and then next weekend is totally booked.

But life is great, and I am loving every day.