Back in August I looked ahead at my calendar and thought that October was going to be the hardest month for me. Now that I'm on the last day of September, I can clearly look ahead and behind and it's official. September was the hardest month ever. There is no way that October can be as hard or harder. Impossible. It would kill me.
We had a lot of lost opportunities in September because we were overbooked or because of my broken toe or because I just couldn't do any more. I really hate missing out on things and saying No to things. To live life to its fullest, you have to say Yes!
But I also said No ahead of time. Now October has a lot of extra room in it and that's reassuring. Don't start inviting me to things just because I said that. I need that extra room for studying and going on leaf walks and watching movies. I am so full of love for my husband and my children because I miss them on a daily basis. Even days when they're right there, if I have to be cooking or studying or making phone calls at the same time, I go to bed and think "if this was my last day, would I be content with it?" Of course the answer is No! I should have done more laughing and more hugging and more learning and sharing! Maybe I can fit that in during October.
My big priority now is my classes. Every week it's a paper or a quiz or an exam between the three classes. What online classes lack in classroom attendance they make up for with assignments. The hours equate. Doh. I'm doing well in all of my classes but I'm freaked out that I won't be able to keep it up. Hurry up December so I can be done with this anxiety!
I'm also considering my yoga business and where I want to go with that in the future. I've decided not to teach another session this year after I finish this one bc I'll be too busy with the election and then Thanksgiving and then Christmas. But my classes are pretty full and I really love teaching them. And I love that J. and C. are able to be in yoga classes every week. It's really helping J. learn to help others and C. to learn some self-control and patience (appropriately for their ages, of course. I'm not pushing them too hard.). I have been geeking out with my Developmental Psychology teacher bc I have lots of thoughts and experience and education on childhood development and that's as far as we've gotten in class (we started with prenatal development). Anyhow, he thinks I should offer my yoga classes through the Parenting Center at the college, which pairs with another organization to enroll kids in enrichment courses at the college. He started the Parenting Center so he said he knows all the right people and can get me set up if I want to. I told him we'll talk after midterms, so more like late October. I need some time to really think first. But it's an honor just to be approached!
And my friend Brandi came to evaluate my house for her "deep clean" or as I call it, "fix-it clean". I am so excited about her helping me to clean. Just knowing that I won't have to do all this alone has given me the energy to start doing a bit of cleaning again. Not tons, mind you. But some. I hope not to be the person who cleans her house before the housecleaner comes but I think I'll at least have the energy to dig her a path through the house!
And finally, there's the whole getting pregnant thing. It's a possibility now but not a priority. Whatever will be, will be. There's drawbacks to getting pregnant with a lot of cortisol in your body, which I totally have (it's a stress hormone), so I'm ok to wait. And then there's the issue of birthday timing. Not so much about the actual giving birth, but how your birthday determines your age relative to your peers and how that plays out in terms of physical and mental competition throughout school. I've read several books and studies suggesting that it's tough to be the youngest in the class (ie born in August) and to be the oldest (ie born in September). My best friend's birthday is September 5th and they didn't have the September 1st birthday cut off when we were kids so she was in my grade as the youngest, not in the younger grade as the oldest. She did fine and she's a raging sucess so it'll work out any way that you go so long as the other factors are in place. But there's also a lot of evidence that the correlation is stronger for boys than for girls and since we hope this one will be a boy... So we wait. But we're fine with that. Plenty more to focus on in the meantime!
You have so much on your plate! Wow!
ReplyDeletePersonal opinion re stress and pregnancy: definitely eliminate as much stress as possible when pregnant. One of the labs I used to work in looked at the effect of prenatal stress on brain development and postnatal behavior. There's lots of strong evidence that prenatal stress is a significant contributor to later psychopathological conditions, like schizophrenia. So----even though disorders of that sort are relatively rare, I still think that reducing stress as much as possible is a really good thing for a fetus! (not to mention, Mama:)
Good luck with everything---you are a super star, I can't believe how much stuff you are juggling at once!