This week has aged me

I think I have been holding my breath and pursing my lips now for a solid three days. You know, parenting teaches you many things. Namely: don't get too cocky. I was rocking Anabelle and giving her a bottle four nights ago thinking, I've got this in the bag. Wake up at 7am, nap from noon to 2 or so, dinner at 6, bath every other night, bedtime at 7pm. Chugga chugga chugga -- all was running like a well-oiled machine.

Then. BAM.

Front molars have to knock down my nice, tidy schedule's door and ruin it all. All of a sudden Anabelle is falling asleep at 10am in her stroller and car seat and it's bye bye to nap time. There's screaming around and during all times of sleep. The tylenol and motrin fairy has come to visit many a night this week.

I feel fried. But no rest for the weary because Anahi, the new babysitter, cancelled today. She's sick, so I told her to rest, feel better and we'll talk next week. I'm sorry for her, I really am. Oh man, but since I'm me and only in my own shoes, I feel really really sorry for myself.

I feel old today. Don't roll your eyes, I know, I'm only 31. But feeling bone tired really takes the wind out of a gal's sails, takes the "care" and the "free" out of "carefree."

Kristin, my sister, gave me the book "Buddhism for Mothers" by Sarah Napthali, and I think I need to really read it. (Don't you wish you could read, sleep and watch tv all at the same time?) Flipping through the book, I found this poem by a Buddhist mother, and it resonated with me on a very deep level:

...she fights the shame

Of a temper at small infractions

By her children (thank god for them)

Never knew such temper simmered

Aching to be lost.

She sinks into memories and dreams

Folding corners of herself down

Like a neat napkin

Hiding the stains, the dirt

Of her most wonderous gypsy self

So that this life - this perfectly happy life -

Might proceed without incident

Without tragedy.

She who writes this song to herself

Sings now for the selves

That have no place to be sung.

Ok, Mothers. Unite. Has anybody else found refuge in daydreams? I often think of my old apartment on Fern Court in Old Town, Chicago. My crummy little apartment (with its teeny tiny bedroom and broken linoleum floors) that I made my own and fell madly in love with. Fern Court. One tiny block long, an alley really, with the Buddhist temple and the dog park. In the fall the leaves turned yellow and fell in windswept piles around the curbs. Overhead, St. Michael's clock lit up white like a full moon every night. I walked to work, fall, winter, spring and summer. I trudged through the snow and wind, wet hair tucked into my hat. I meandered home at the end of the day, always stopping into Anthropologie for a look. I remember the day it snowed and snowed, and I took Buzz out for a romp in it when I got home. He bounded happily around for an hour, and we both went home tired and happy.

There are times (like these) that life seems to go by in the blink of an eye. I suppose those are the times that make me feel old. Like I'm looking back on my life even as I live it. There's a delicate balance then, isn't there, between enjoying the present, looking forward to the future and reminiscing over the past.