You may have guessed that I have been having a week of overwork. This happens a lot when several part-time jobs, instead of one full-time gig, make up one’s 40 60 hour work-week. The lowlight of my week came yesterday when the day care called the language school where I teach because my daughter had developed a fever.

Reception told the day care I was unreachable. I was in a classroom down the hall and it was 15 minutes before the end of class. They didn’t even pass along a message. Once I arrived, all I knew about the situation was that there was a distinct “bad mother” vibe in the atmosphere.

Today, I decided to take a rare day off.

I don’t usually teach on Fridays, but I schedule writing and editing work, blog promotion and we attend the English language mother-baby group. Then, this morning, my son and his father started the day with an argument. My boy came out of the experience so upset that he’s “too sick to go to kindergarten.”

Hence, my decision to take the day off from everything. I am writing this blog, but mostly for my own benefit (please bear with me).

So, when my little girl was napping. I put on my favorite yoga DVD. I love doing yoga. Nothing else makes me feel as good. Nothing else relieves my physical and emotional stress to the same degree. And yet, I haven’t done yoga in almost a year. I know because I blogged it.

Throughout this 30-minute break my son whined.

“I don’t want to watch this. I don’t want to do yoga. I want to watch Little Bill and Dora.”

At one point during the Upward Dog pose, he even sat on me.

I can’t even get half-an-hour to myself after working more than 48 hours in the last 4 days, I thought.

It’s my own fault.

While I was working days and evenings; I still scheduled special time with the kids, I still took care of a few details for a volunteer commitment, I still wrote this blog, I still took late night phone calls about editing work I’ll start this weekend.

Is it any wonder my 5 year-old has the opinion that his mother’s needs for personal time and interests are unimportant?

Obviously I have to change things. I might even know where to start. I once did a personality profile test and the result said that the first thing I should do in the mornings is decide what I am not going to do.

I also think I can start using words my 5 year-old and toddler can understand. You might know this phrase too:

“It’s my turn.”

Post from: Babylune

Obviously, the lack of energy to do anything about my daughter’s sleep patterns has nothing to do with her. In fact, I don’t think I’ve slept through the night since I was 6 months pregnant with my first child. Obviously, stress is an issue and, even though I know yoga and deep breathing, exercise and reading all help me disengage, my mind is a very active thing…and that’s not good.  

I know that things can be different.

Last summer, I took three weeks off. Not only did we go away, but I stepped away from the computer. I pre-wrote blog entries and articles, I stopped reading newspapers (or anything else) on the Internet and I just focussed on where I was and who I was with. I think it was the only time in the past ten years that I have done, or thought about doing, one thing at a time. It wasn’t all easy. For the first week I was crabby without my usual fix of information and my sister in-law and I had our first ever argument. Actually, due to language differences, we had to have it twice. Other than those very regrettable episodes though, I know I was calmer by the end.

I can’t disengage right now. Even though I am about to take some time off from my teaching job, it’s because I have a huge writing project to do.  Planning the project, making arrangements for the support I need to do it properly and  worries about it have been filling my mind. Day care issues that have come up while I’ve been teaching and preparing have felt like bigger worries than they really are. My husband and I have been arguing about housework and the list of things to do has been running through my mind all the time.

Obviously, I can’t just disengage from everything right now, but it seems to me that I can learn how to compartmentalize my life, to deal with one thing at a time and enjoy it all a little more.

The question is, how to learn? Do you have any ideas? I think it’s time for me to explore all the options. It’s time for another experiment on myself.

Post from: Babylune