Weekly Recap #16: "Lack of SPACE 😬"
Ok, honest blogpost time. Week 3 of the new year & I've already hit one of those gnarly busy weeks where kids get sick, throw off all your daily plans, but you love em, and with my littlest guy you actually get to experience the extremely rare time of him being calm. Add some other unexpected family news on top of it & boom, there goes the brilliant week you had planned. Needless to say, this past week I have felt a big invasion of personal space & a much needed time out. Earlier this month I made a post on the Creative Dad Instagram page about my reset, which is getting outside for a bike ride, but at this point I'm heading toward needing a full fledged vacation!
***If my kids by chance read this blog post in the future, know that dad loves ya, but just like you dont like your siblings messing up your stuff & your plans, dad gets that feeling too.***
I'd say that this has to be the biggest adjustment to life getting married & especially with having kids. When you're single & you're having a hectic week you can just push through the stuff you have to do, but come home to a quiet house and get some rest. When you're a parent & have the crazy week, you come home & often times things get even crazier. Even rest gets disturbed by random 3am encounters with one of your kids jumping in the bed and hitting you in the nether regions, it's really quite delightful 🤦🏻♂️
But amongst the chaos often times there are little moments, the tiniest little moments of snuggle time, or watching your kids accomplish a new thing, enjoying a meal together as a family, or just the occasional quiet house that brings everything back together. It's so crazy how just a few minutes of peace where everyone is actually sleeping or watching a movie together can redeem all the chaos. I had one of those moments with my two oldest this week on a bike ride where we stopped and just stared at the water, it literally only lasted about a minute, but that moment of seeing them calm and enjoying nature with me made my week better... only to be thrown back into reality about 20 minutes later, but the moment was nice.
Also in the midst of the chaos I had a bit of a dad fail where my daughter wanted to create some creatures out of recyclables & I was in the middle of several projects... I even helped her for a bit between projects, but I wasn't quite understanding her requests. My little creative girl was determined however & proceeded to ask her mother and I where tape was and took it upon herself to figure out her own project. Luckily my wife was able to level with her a bit more & her creations just about brought a tear to my eye. She was so creative in thinking about little details on this dinosaur & princess that she wanted to create, and with the help of scissors, basically created two cute characters out of trash and tape. She even got a little graphic with her dinosaur having blood on the meat he was eating 😬 My favorite detail which I was able to figure out with her was the glasses for her characters, and again, despite the chaos I got to feel a moment of pride & joy as her creatures came to life.
In conclusion I write this to the parents out there that are at their breaking points. I write this as a reminder that it isn't always glitter & rainbows & hugs. I write this to those strangers or friends that are surprised when they see my kids act up or have caught me in my not-so-great moments. And I write to encourage you to hang in there, try to get some me-time, & know that if you just scrounge up a bit more patience, one of those glorious moments of joy might be just around the corner, & sometimes your kids will even surprise you when you least expect it. You got this 💪🏼
