It’s my birthday today and the one gift I asked for was some time to myself. As someone who requires a decent amount of alone time to recharge my batteries, I asked for two hours of peace and quiet today – enough time for Matt and the kids to source and bring me back a red velvet cake from somewhere in Saskatoon. I know when I don’t get that, I start to become crabby and not my best self. Alone time, that is, not red velvet cake.
Since summer break started, it’s been a steady stream of minding the kids – getting them up, feeding them, getting them to do chores, making sure they are not on the screen too much, feeding them again, actually doing stuff with them, driving them places, stopping squabbles, feeding them again, getting them ready for bed. You know the drill if you’re a parent.
The kids and Matt gifted me with a self-care basket this year, so I could be indulging in some of those things now. But I’m choosing to blog instead. Writing in a quiet house is so much easier than in a noisy one.
These guys generally take a mid-day nap, so I can rely on them to keep it down, or entertain themselves.
Something I noticed earlier this year is that while kids don’t realize how much time they have, adults are almost always scrambling for more time. Our kids, often, when not on a screen will walk around the house not knowing what to do. They’re bored. They also have time to be bored.
Brighton will often let us know when he is bored. But I always tell him it’s good to be bored and that it’s up to him to figure out what to do about it. More often that not, he will seek out someone else to play with him, but sometimes he will go off and play with Lego or read a book.
Really, we ALL have time to do things. We are all given the same 24 hours in a day to either waste or use to our advantage. But if we haven’t set out how to properly use that time, it can either seem like we don’t have enough or that we have an endless amount.
This year marks my 49th birthday and it’s certainly put things into perspective. While I feel very fortunate to be where we are today, I also sometimes feel like time is running out on what I’d like to accomplish in my lifetime. Having put my career on the back-burner while the kids were and still are young has made it feel like I am behind in that part of my life.
When people would ask me what I did (for a living), I would tell them I was an illlustrator/designer and that I worked from home. But the reality of it was that I was mostly a stay-at-home mom who occasionally still did art and freelance work. I had thought having one child was hard, but child number two made one seem like a walk-in-the-park, for a couple of years. Then we unexpectedly had another baby, this time a boy, and well, now eight years later, I am finally getting back into my art again.
I’ve got a minimum of three new muses, so there’s no excuse really, except finding the time to fit everything I want to do into the day.
Apparently, Martha Stewart started her company at 50, so you’re never too old to get going. She could also get by on very little sleep, which is probably not the best thing to do in the long run.
What did you ask for on your birthday this year?
