Groundhog Day

Yesterday I hit the wall. Figuratively, not literally. I came home from work, The Babe in tow, and scrambled upstairs for the beginning the evening routine. This week has been a bit chaotic, topping off with my husband having to wake up The Babe yesterday morning to find that she had thrown up in the night and her entire bed needed to be stripped before heading off to work. Yay. I haven't made as many meals, have found myself eating out due to convenience  and what seems to be one big craving for processed food. As a result, we have been out more and the house has suffered as a result.

As I came upstairs I looked around and it looked as though a wild animal had torn through my kitchen, leaving dirty dishes, garbage, watermelon rinds and sippy cups in its wake. Clean Tupperware littered the floor and I came to the realization I had pretty much nothing for dinner for The Babe, as she is choosing not to eat chicken at the moment and that it what we were eating for dinner. As I struggled to put together a meal, avoid the ever-present dog, I felt as though I was in the movie "Groundhog Day". As though I wake up every day and spend time every day cleaning and doing laundry and cooking, only to wake up the next day and have it all undone, have to redo it, only to wake up again with the same thought. I felt defeated. I felt tired. And sad, because I don't want to constantly clean and cook. I want to hang out with my kid. But I'm struggling to find that balance and to quell the desire to clean everytime I'm in the kitchen. Some weeks it feels like a winning battle, but this week was not one of them.

Perhaps its the weather, or an over-scheduled week. Perhaps its the time of year - out of the winter but not quite into the nice part of spring. Perhaps I am looking at the house we own, the storage locker we pay for, and doing the mental math and realizing the end of the clutter and disorganization is nowhere in sight for us. Maybe it's all of that.

Luckily for The Babe and I, my husband swooped in right as I was in the thick of my stressed out melancholy. He took one look at me, put in his earbuds, loaded up a podcast and got to work. While we have different approaches to cleaning and organization in life, he knows I have a breaking point and has learned that when he sees it drastic measures must be taken. He handled the laundry while I spent some time reading to The Babe. He vacuumed while I did the dishes. In the end, we managed to tackle the brunt of it before dissolving into bed. There's more to do, but when I woke up this morning, I didn't see my shadow and went on to a brand new day.