Finding a Groove

Thank you all so much for your lovely, sweet, encouraging comments on my last post. You're the best. I'm stealing a bit of my (school) writing time to write this, just to check in and thank you and let you know that things got much, much better after that day. I'll be writing a post all about it for Kate Hopper's Motherhood and Words blog soon, so I'll keep you posted on that (and Lone Star Ma, yes, let's talk about next issue).

Happily, I had a day off Monday before getting back to "real life." I should probably have launched right in to my writing projects, but my brain wasn't up for it just yet. Instead I did a lot of puttering around, tidying things up (though they boys kept the house almost as clean as I had left it during their 10-day reign), and a fair amount of snuggling with the boys.

One of the things I had looked forward to (and enjoyed) most about my ten days away was being freed from all things domestic, but once I got back, I took pleasure in putting my little domestic touches around the house. Blue glass on the windowsill (I love blue glass in January):

And snowflakes in the living room:

And while the boys watched Harry Potter #6 (I know, I know), I spent some time sorting through my papers from the residency and getting my "office in a box" ready for evenings in the library. (Z, who loves to steal my camera, caught me in the act):

And now I'm trying to figure out how to fit 25 hours of writing into the interstices of my days. I've got it all mapped out on paper, which looks great, but implementing it is something else altogether. I've given up Thursday knit nights, and almost all social activities that don't take place on Saturdays and include my children. I'm putting myself on a strict 9-5 sleep schedule, with two 5-6 a.m. work sessions during the week (I'm not giving up my swim on the other three mornings, though, because it was key in maintaining my mental health all last year). I'm abandoning the boys two evenings a week and most of Sunday (though I'm going to try to work at home that day). Oh, and there are lunch breaks and 8-9 p.m. every night No problem, right?

I already find myself jealously guarding my time--especially the evenings. I've never been much of a nighttime parent (I think it all dates back to the bone-crushing sleep deprivation brought on by two nursing babies), but now I'm a drill sergeant at 8:00--to bed now! To the point that when M had a stomach ache the other night, I made him a glass of baking soda and water and told him to go to bed, while I meanwhile slipped into my room with a book of short stories from my reading list. Later I woke to C thrashing around in the closet--he was digging out spare blankets so he could sleep on the chair next to M, who was on the couch in, C was convinced, the early stages of appendicitis. It was sweet, really, like after 10 days alone with his children, C had finally hit that new mother stage when you get home from the hospital with this fragile being whose continued breathing you need to verify every five minutes (though I might cut him off from WebMD if he carries on this way).

And now, I think I should really get to work.