The time in between

  I dreamt of this day. for years. The day where both of my sweet babies were in school and I was free.  It seemed like it would be forever before it happened. When we were in the throws of two kids under 2 and not sleeping, and not showering, and not leaving the house, and not fully functioning, it seemed like such a distant hope. There were days I thought, "I cannot do this. I cannot." But then I'd get my baby boy up from his nap and that smile of his...oh that smile would get me through the rest of the day. It had to. Because honestly, the days were long so I had to find those moments that made it all worth it. And y'all, there were many days I had to actively search for those moments.
  So here I am now with a second grader and a kindergartner. And I'm not needed like I was (which I'm completely okay with). I don't need to change a dirty diaper, or sit and watch Chuggington for the gazillionth time, or make a bottle, or rock a baby to sleep. I was so physically needed then that there were nights I looked at my husband and said, "please don't touch me because I have been pulled on, snotted on, and grabbed in all sorts of places today and now....I just need to not be touched." But that's just where I was. Where we were.
  But here we are now and while I'm still needed, it's just a different sort of need. I'm needed to shuttle to soccer practices, help with math homework, have lunch at school, find a lost inhaler, buy new shoes because suddenly the ones from yesterday don't fit, and have pizza/movie night every single Friday night. I find myself now with chunks of time where I have nothing to do. The kids are gone, the house is clean, I've gone to the gym, grocery shopped, called my mom, and fed the cat. I've caught up with the goings on of the world, played Words with Friends, made Dr/dental appointments for the year, and cleaned out my fridge. This is new territory for me and after years of waiting and wishing for this utopia....I'm not quite sure what to do. Along with this newly acquired free time, I told Tyson that I felt like we were getting a glimpse of empty nest syndrome, like some sort of pre- empty nest syndrome. That should be a real thing. We had a breakfast date a few weeks ago sans children. It was weird because no one spilled milk and I was able to complete full sentences without being interrupted. I seriously couldn't handle it.  We ran out of things to talk about half way through (granted our breakfast took 45 minutes to come out so we complained about that together for a while- bonded over our shared hunger).... and I do not want to be one of those couples that looks at each other after the kids are in college and realizes they have nothing left in common because their kids were the only thing they had in common.
  This time in between my kids being really young (and really needy) and them being really old (and mostly independent) feels like this weird mom limbo. I'm not quite ready to work full time, because I still want to be available to do all the things  I do now. But there are times I find myself not knowing what to do with my free time.
  With the experience of motherhood and the past eight years of my life... I can tell you, I'm not who I was when I started this journey and it has been interesting just getting to that realization alone. The dreams I had before children are not my dreams now. The life I wanted 10 years ago is not the life I want now. Where I thought I'd be when I was 30 is not where I am. But that's okay. Its better than okay. And now I will sound like a little old lady, but really, it is all about the journey. Its about getting there. And I'm really trying to make an effort to live that way. For a girl who likes a checklist and end results, this is huge.

Mom hacks:

-Cinnamon Dolce K cups....OMG. That's all I have to say. And use Hazelnut creamer. don't ask, just do it.

-Screen time tokens: This concept is interesting. Our kids are growing up with technology we did not have when we were younger (feeling old yet?). My kids are not quite at the age where this is an issue, but we do limit Kindle and tv time during the week. And absolutely no screen time on school mornings. Because then there is almost always rushing around and yelling raised voices. Here is an excerpt from the book Essentialism:

The children were given ten tokens at the beginning of the week. These could each be traded in for either thirty minutes of screen time or fifty cents at the end of the week, adding up to $5 or five hours of screen time a week. If a child read a book for thirty minutes, he or she would earn an additional token, which could also be traded in for screen time or for money. The results were incredible: overnight, screen time went down 90 percent, reading went up by the same amount, and the overall effort we had to put into policing the system went way, way down.

interesting right?

-And hey, if you need a good cry, watch this short video. It's a great contrast to what I posted last week about yelling. How do your kids really see you? So stop being so hard on yourself - your kids tend to remember the good while you tend to remember the bad. And that's good.

-Another recipe, because hey, I like food. It is officially fall, so here is a fail proof Pumpkin bread recipe I have used for years. Sometimes I add chocolate chips. Sometimes I don't. I also make this year round because Luke believes pumpkin is not seasonal. and I agree.