It was a bit of a shock. Mostly because I have been fully convinced, for about a month now, that I have it all together.
Two kids? No problem.
Husband in medical school? Totally doable.
A church calling with some heavy responsibilities? Piece of cake.
I had a busy day planned for Friday. It was full of good things too: transporting Brad to and from different hospitals in Seattle (so he wouldn't have to ride his bike in our unusually cold weather), visiting teaching, grocery shopping, and taking dinner to a sweet elderly lady in our ward who needed some extra help. Somewhere in there I was hoping to find some time to go over the Relief Society lesson that I had been asked to teach on Sunday.
I thought I could handle it all...I must have temporarily forgotten that I have kids. Kids who like their naps and their routine. Kids who like a mom who has some time for them. Two adorable kids who, it turns out, don't really appreciate being dragged all over Seattle, even if it's for a worthy cause.
Everything started falling apart around 10 a.m. when I came home from the grocery store and called the sweet elderly lady only to find out that she's allergic to precisely the menu I had planned for her. That meant we had to make another trip to the grocery store, which meant that Leah didn't get her morning nap.
Things went consistently downhill from there. I won't go into all the sad details, but by 5 p.m. I found myself in rush hour traffic having just dropped off Brad (late and without dinner) for his all night ER shift, with two exhausted kids, and with a sad excuse for a dinner that I had hastily thrown together for the sweet elderly lady. She'd asked me to bring dinner at 5 p.m.. We didn't deliver it until 5:45.
What a day. I managed to do everything I'd planned to do, but I don't think I did any of it well. It was awful.
So, I've been re-evaluating my priorities. Even if my schedule was full of good things, they weren't the best things for my family. This week we have taken things more slowly. I've tried to make my husband and my girls feel like my highest priority. I've delegated some of my church responsibilities. I even said "no" one day when I felt like it was too much to handle. What a difference a week makes!
Friday was a hard day, but I think I needed the wake up call. I'm not superwoman. And honestly, I don't really want to be.
8 comments:
You are still superwoman!! I'm impressed with your attitude--you've always had you priorities striaght. That's not always an easy thing in this busy world. You're awesome!
Trac you're awesome. And you're totally right- family has to come first. It's great to take a step back and realize that it's OK if we don't get everything done we want to. I think I'll re prioritize my list of essentials too. Thanks for the great post!
I really liked this post. You are amazing. I'm starting to feel better most days, so next time you have a day like this, call me and I can help. Thanks for your help on Monday.
Thanks for that post. I am sure being a mother and having all those responsbilities is way hard. It is really good to have a chance to sit back and re-evaluate priorities.
Thanks Trac for this post. It reminded me of proper prioritizing and these talks from General Conference http://lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/good-better-best?lang=eng in 2007 and 2010 http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/of-things-that-matter-most?lang=eng I loved these talks. I've had to take a step back lately too and make a few things more of a priority. Hope things are going great for you and your family now. Sure love you guys. Keep up the great work!
You never cease to amaze me, Sis. Even in the midst of all the chaos and good-deed doing, you re-balance your life and get into best-deed doing :) Thanks for sharing, definitely something I needed to relearn right now. Love you and wish you were closer.
This was a great post! I loved it, and maybe I needed to be reminded of priorities I should have a little higher on my list! Love your cute family!
Actually you are Superwoman. This post totally proves it. Love you Traci!
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