11 May 2015

Mondays frustrate me...

...But not for the reason you might think.

See, I love Mondays. The start of a brand-new week at home, a blank piece of paper in front of me to begin the weekly master to-do list. Coming off the weekend with Matt home to help with Little Bear, I feel like I have so much energy and I can't wait to do all the things and have a really super clean house and reorganize the closets and cook/bake 20 different things I've been wanting or have run out of and prep things for the baby. The baby, y'all. I'm having a baby in about a month, and that just kind of sunk in today. So much to do, and I'm so excited to do it.

So I fill up my entire sheet of paper with all of these things that I'm going to do, that I need to do, that I actually really want to do and am excited about... and then halfway through the first chore, the second if I'm really lucky, I'm forcibly reminded that I'm going on 35 weeks pregnant. And my body hates being pregnant. And I actually have no energy, and sitting/standing/walking hurts, and my ankles swell a little more every time I so much as look at the darn list.

Most of the sitting-down chores did get crossed off the list today. The ones requiring the computer had to wait until after bedtime, because Little Bear doesn't nap anymore and any time I try to pull my laptop out he's immediately drawn to it and wants to pick out the alphabet on my keyboard. I'm so happy that you know the alphabet, son, but can't you play legos right now? I should be grateful for bedtime and the 2+ hours I have to work after Little Bear goes down, though, because I realize that I'm going to lose that break very soon.

After going grocery shopping, putting groceries away, and then reorganizing two kitchen cupboards to find a home for my new pyrex food storage containers (which I am SO excited about, and so very very happy to be able to exile the plasticware from my kitchen!), pretty much everything else that required extended standing was out. Laundry got done, because I could sit down while I folded it; a menu got written; Little Bear's winter and too-small clothes got sorted into their proper boxes and his shorts came out, and all of his clothes migrated to the bottom two dresser drawers (so that he can put away his own laundry!) leaving the top two empty and waiting for baby clothes. Which are somewhere, I'm sure. Making yogurt, applesauce, banana bread, and the cranberry-white chocolate-oatmeal cookies that baby has me craving all got put off, along with a passel of other chores.

Because it's been a while and I'm thinking about it, here is our supper menu for the week:

Monday: mulberry-glazed chicken, buttermilk biscuits, green salad
Tuesday: sausage-potato egg bake with tomatoes, bell pepper and basil
Wednesday: shredded bbq caribou sandwiches, cider vinegar broccoli slaw
Thursday: supper with my family
Friday: pan bagno
Saturday: Tuscan pork chops, brown rice
Sunday: chicken pasta bake with ricotta, tomatoes and zucchini

So a few things are done. But it seems like, for every one thing I cross off the list, I think of two more to add! Realizing that oh, wow, we could potentially be bringing a baby home in less than a month! certainly isn't helping with the feeling of needing and wanting to do so many things all right now, and the frustration of not functioning at the level I want to be at. How am I supposed to get ready for the baby when I can hardly do a fraction of what I need to? I'm trying to prioritize, but it's hard to sort by both "what does my family most need of me?" and "what am I physically capable of at this moment?" at the same time.

Mondays start out feeling so full of promise, and then I'm so quickly reminded of how much I can't do. By the end of the week, at least I've accepted that my to-do list will never actually be finished.

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