"Cuz every little thing....is gonna be alright...."

Here is what Phill tells me when I cry like I did last night, discouraged to the point of distraction:

One thing at a time.

He says it gently, with kindness in his eyes, and his hand going through my hair, and it works like a charm. Takes me from 10 to 1 in no time, every time.

So today, I am addressing one thing at a time. Right now, I am thinking about the distractions I have (cleaning house, running errands, paying bills) and the distractions I give myself (the computer.....the computer. THE COMPUTER). And I realize that much of the stretched-too-thin feelings I have could be dissipated if I focused on what needed to be done--when it needed to be done. Free myself from distraction, from the things that tend to get me feeling like I am unavailable.

So, sweet friends, today I am not going to look at Google Reader, Facebook, or my email until my children are in bed.

Maybe I'll be really extreme and even turn off the computer.

WHOA is me....

I just would like to say that this is how I feel today:
And I would also like to say, because oh MAN am I feeling it today:
I am longing for the days when the carpet is not used as a toilet by anyone.
I am so mentally/emotionally tired that even writing this post is taking a painful amount of brain cells.
Today was.....today was just in my face. Just WHOA. WHOA there.....steady.
I will sob with joy the first time the kids go more than 30 minutes without some fight about something.
If I still have all my hair by the time I am 27, I will be pleasantly shocked.

And lastly.....
Oh, how I love my children. How they exhaust and challenge and stretch my patience, causing me to have to grow in the most uncomfortable inconvenient ways....and oh, how I love them for it.
And tonight when I finished helping Reed finish his homework (last minute, at 9:00p.m., because we enable each other's slacking tendencies), and he called to me from his room when I was IN THE BATHROOM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD and I was so tired and so done that I barked out, "WHAT! I AM IN THE BATHROOM!" and he answered, "Thank you for helping me with my homework".....I almost cried from shame.

It's just that today is one of those days--one of those days when I am weary. So for now, I'm just letting the water works come. It's all good....this too shall pass, within me there is a peacefulness that cannot be disturbed, I am not this feeling, yada yada yada. Sometimes I just need to cry like a baby. And blog like a baby.
*Dear Foleys, thank you for the use of your darling baby in this totally self-piteous post. For the record, he is the cutest crying baby ever--WAY cuter than when I'M crying. :)

Reed and Jax

Somewhat telling....Reed in the waves and Jaxon approaching cautiously. :)

More CA blogging/photos to come, and you can check out my Facebook page, too, if you're impatient.

Photos

The four latest HERE

Mommy Mantra #6: I Am Not This Feeling

I needed to remind myself today that I am not Stress, I am not Frustration, I am not Selfishness. I am Rae--who sometimes (or often) feels stress, frustration, or selfish. Enjoy the quote!

"Sometimes feelings set in for extended stays, as with depression. Or for some of us, we have habitual and reflexive ways of dealing with certain events...I am not this feeling [liberates us] from having to react to the situation in [our] old conditioned way. Of course, if you are telling yourself you're an anxious person, you'll act anxiously. One would anticipate angry people to react with anger. But reminding yourself that you are larger than any given emotion offers the potential to react with a greater spectrum of responses. It's easy with the enormous and often uncivilized demands of mothering to overidentify with our emotions and label ourselves as angry, fed up, or stressed. And while these may be a part of who we are at any given moment, the truth is that we are also much more...there is another way of perceiving our emotions and ourselves."

Pages 27 &28, Mommy Mantras by Bethany E. Casarjian, Ph.D. & Diane H. Dillon, Ph.D.