SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

Yes, the inner geek has struck again. I'm learning to embrace it, though. At this point in life, I'm fairly confident that no matter how geeky I get my husband will still think I'm cute, my babies will still think I am the source of all goodness, my sister will just laugh, and my friends will still love me. (They already all know I'm wierd, anyway.) So why hide it?

I've come to this conclusion about schedules: love 'em or hate 'em, if you're going to have smallish children and get anything other than diaper changing and nose wiping done in a day, you have to have one. And follow it, kind of dogmatically. I've been scratched mine out on several different pieces of paper, tweaked it, and scratched it out again. I'm still trying to find a good balance for all the stuff: Mommy stuff, Writing stuff, Me stuff, and other random but important stuff like paying bills and washing clothes. Oh, yes, and Sleep. (Occasionally.) Inevitably, just when I really get on a roll and start getting comfortable with my schedule, one of the kids starts one of those "I've just hit a new phase in life and my sleeping and eating patterns will now be completely different" surprises. Love those. Yum, yum.

Mara, for example, no longer needs two naps a day. She will still go to her bedroom, but she usually stays awake for the entire two hours during either the morning or the afternoon "nap." Fortunately Robbie sleeps through most of her noise. Unfortunately, she starts getting bored when he doesn't wake up and "talk" to her. Bored + 2 year old = Not Good.

A few days ago I was tapping away at the keyboard, racing through a last article, trying to get finished before lunchtime. Mara is talking away in their bedroom, but she's fairly quiet and happy and Robbie isn't crying. It's about half an hour before naptime should be over, so I'm just going to leave her in there. Until I hear three very distinct words: "Uh-oh. Poo-poo. Mawa."  She kept repeating them: "Uh-oh. Mawa poo-poo. Uh-oh. Poo-poo. Uh-oh. Mawa." Time to go check in.

So I open the door to see Mara squatting in the rocking chair, holding her diaper in her hand, pointing to the floor. "Uh-oh." Yep. There are little piles which should have ended up in her diaper had she kept it on her bottom. She knows how to get herself a new diaper from the changing table; if only I could teach her how to put it on...

Time to adjust the schedule again. Not that I don't love my little pooping daughter, but those two hours of morning nap are my most productive writing time. Not worth cleaning up piles off the floor every day, though. Here's to flexibility.

(Oh, yes, that picture at the top is my schedule that I finally moved from various pieces of paper to an actual pretty spreadsheet. I made it a .pdf, then Joe showed me how to take a screenshot so I could make it my desktop background. Geeky, I know, but now it's there all the time. And it still has photos on it, they're just smaller...).