I finally made a spreadsheet of all the projects I have going currently. I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, that there were nine of them. NINE. That’s three times the number of kids I have. What was I thinking? You’re right, I wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all complaining. But I started to feel a bit overwhelmed by it all even though I actively chose it. I love doing all the things I do. Most of it is writing or desktop publishing related, so I can do it any time. I try to work when the kids are napping, or after they go to bed. But they just started preschool, and along with that came the virus of the week, courtesy of the sick classmates whose parents brought them anyway. That s-l-o-w-e-d our house down considerably. I can’t leave out that my Blackberry went berserk on me, leaving me no choice but to switch to the iPhone. It’s not just a phone, it’s an experience. Heaven for an organizer type like me!
But gathering all the therapy schedules, school drop offs, pick ups, etc. became a much bigger chore when the whole house was sick for several weeks. I hate cancelling any therapy sessions, but obviously I cannot take sick children in. Increasingly my projects got less and less attention, until I was faced with four projects having deadlines on the same day. Uh oh. While I work well under pressure, I wanted to just close the computer and do nothing. Nothing lying down in bed while playing angry birds on my iPhone.
Somehow I managed to get it all done, and for those who always ask me how I do it, the secret is – I don’t fold anything. When I really stopped to figure out how I ended up doing so much, I guessed that it keeps me so busy that I don’t have time to think about anything sad. I need a carrot. Lots of carrots. I think I’m afraid if I do less, I will begin to dwell on issues my kids are facing, our upcoming IEP assessment and borrowing trouble. I don’t want to do that; it’s a slippery slope. Much too easy to start questioning they whys, what ifs and wherefores.
So onward with the color-coded calendars, notebooks for each kid’s therapy summaries and labeled clothes for school. More spreadsheets, lists and organized folders, please. Keep the projects coming, I’ll forget about the laundry and get it all done on time. If that makes me a ‘yes’ girl then so be it. If I didn’t say yes, I’d probably be screaming “Nooooooooooo!” way too often.
Read more about life with triplets here.
No comments:
Post a Comment