Everyone has problems. You hear the saying "Put everyone's problems in a pile and you will gladly take your own back."
I feel like all my 'problems' are self-inflicted. Well...at least for the ones we 'know' about. All those 'other' things we are trying to figure out, I would claim I didn't explicitly sign up for. "Explicitly" in the terms of looking through a park district book and signing up for classes. Or putting my name on the list to help out at the school holiday party. Or choosing to be a working mom.
Everyone has ruts. Sorry to complain about them in the blog. I have a lot of catching up to do with the eldest and updates to provide on things we keep trying to work things out in that arena. I'll get to that update soon enough, but I suppose right now I'm on the tightrope feeling sheer panic of being able to get across with all the things I am balancing.
I think the source of this latest rut is that all these different parts of my life seemed to not be working. Everything at work is on fire. Balancing therapy, gymnastics, and Wonderful Husband's school on Tuesday was a disaster. Disaster. I was starting to dread Tuesdays even more so with my mother in law trying to help. While she was really trying, her help ended up being along the same line of having a cleaning lady. You need the cleaning lady, it will help you, but the work it takes to get ready for the cleaning lady adds it's own layer of stress and work. I signed up for school holiday party to help, but I didn't know I was signing up for organizing the party.
Stop! There it is: "organizing the party." This was the straw that broke this camel's back. What I didn't know is that when you sign up to help with a school party, that means you have to plan, organize, put together, and host the school party. Wait, What?! This wasn't on the flyer that I put my name on in August. Work is shit, my house is a disaster, again no kids have socks in their drawers, and now I have to organize a St. Valentine's party for 40 first graders?! (Er, 'Friendship Party' we are in a public school you know.)
There is a problem here. A major one: I have a first grader, but he is in special education. I really have no clue what a 'typical' first grader would like to do. Panic is setting in. Why? Because I'm going to fail at this.
I realized I was being annoying, unrational, etc. I realize I was being a Debbie Downer when I told my first-grade-mom friend how I didn't realize it was our job as parents to plan the party. She looked at me as if I didn't know that eggs were the first ingredient in scrambled eggs. I realized: "Duh self!" But to my defense, this is my first kid in grade school and I found out from other first time grade-school moms, they didn't realize this either. Phew, I'm not the only one who felt like they were going to fail.
This is why we need friends, they help us to not panic. They secure us to realize we aren't failures. We need fellow comrades to validate that we aren't the only ones who are having a hard time. We need them to tell us they are scared too. We need them to ensure us that rules or expectations are silly, and if we stick together, we will back each other up and always be there for each other.
Friends, thank God for them. College friends who write you or ping you to say they love you and make sure you are okay. Moms of twins or triplets, like you, who will meet out after the kids are in bed so we can ensure we are all feeling crazed, overwhelmed, and out-numbered so we can laugh about it together. Neighbors who will always lend an ear, have the kids play to get them off our back, and give you a big smile or hug. Work colleagues who will not compete with you and share that everything is going to hell, their projects are on fire too. The oldest friends you made even back in kindergarten that will always be running through your heart and you can pick up where you left off years ago. And family, the oldest and most forever friends you will ever have (even if they are relatively new into the family).
I was missing my friends. Life was getting too busy for what was important: Friends. I wasn't seeing, talking, emailing, IM'ing, texting, or calling my friends. By the end of this week I realized it and even with a few pings, emails, calls, texts, and correctly guessing (but incorrectly spelling) some pictures over the iPad, this was the life line I needed. Friends give me the shot in the arm I need to know I am not alone. Friends will have my back and tell me it's okay if I am the worst first-grade-mom-party-thrower in the world.
Thank God for Friends.
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