Last day of the year

This year, I’ve totally hit the floor, not just with Christmas, but with the usual seasons greetings and updates to friends. Heck, we don’t even have a decent family photo to share. But in my defence, I’d say this has been a rough year for me. Suffice to say the pregnancy plain winded me through the bulk of the year, and even as I picked up steam towards the end, just the arrival of M was enough to stop me in my tracks again.

So this is my wish for the coming year – that I keep it together better. Be a little more prayful, a little more chill and a lot more flexible. Take things easy, and with a deep breath. Tackle things as they come, in small bites, rather than worrying about what cannot be changed.

Happy New Year, everyone, and may it be a good one for you!

The night before Christmas

T’was the night before Christmas

When all lay asleep,

Except Mommy, alas,

Unwrapped presents a-heap.

Babes all a-slumber till daylight, she hopes,

Or Christmas Day will be tears and mopes.

Christmas? What Christmas?

After last year’s all-out effort, we’ve really hit the floor this year. Christmas is about to pass us by without us having done one single Christmassy thing around the house.

There’s no tree – we didn’t source for a real one because we’re still “in transition” and don’t really have space for one. Our smaller, fake tree has long been chucked. And I just didn’t feel like getting a make-do one just cos I’ve been heavily pregnant and Grinch-like.

There are, at this current point, still no presents. Up until a few days ago, we didn’t even have Christmas plans, but my parents saved us by inviting us over for dinner. Presents, fortunately, are easy to take care of, since only children get gifts around here. Adults are too lazy to get gifts for each other.

We have no Christmas music, no Christmas artwork, no Advent calendar, save a lovely Advent Calendar card to S and N each from their dear Aunt in Germany. No snowflakes, no wreaths, no tinsel on the gate.

And if you ask me, I just cannot be asked right now. I could’ve planned for it all prior to Baby M’s appearance, but I didn’t. Because I didn’t feel like it. And now, I still don’t feel like it.

But the presents. If nothing else at all, we must have presents. And I still have a few more days to do that. Lucky me.

The state of my life

Three weeks on from the last post, I have had the baby, as you may have well guessed, or probably know as fact since most of you who drop by actually know me.

The state of my life at present is one of incessant nursing by Baby M, and incessant whining, sulking and fighting by the older two. Incidentally, Baby M is currently proving to be the easiest child, just because all he really wants from me is the boob, a nappy change and a good rocking. The other two, however, require much more. With N, it’s stamina – when he’s up, he just needs company. He’s like the energizer bunny that won’t stop. With S, I need patience, strategy and a whole lot of counting-to-ten. Just so I don’t blow my top. She goes out of her way to push limits and try my patience. All the time. I put it down to boredom and hope that once we’re back to school, she’ll tone down some. 

I still get time to update my social networking account, post photos and write emails, although very sporadically. And of course, I still have my never-ending pile of paperwork that has started to build again. Making phone calls are proving to be a challenge – I cannot do it as long as any one child is awake (except S – she is old enough to know she has to keep quiet when I’m speaking on the phone). And I continually tackle my children’s various ailments, meaning that I’m venturing out to clinics every week or so for one small person or another.

I like reading Kristen of Motherhood Uncensored. She’s brutally honest and hilarious. She is a stay-home mother of three under five and insanely juggles child-rearing, housework and a job as writer on several sites. She’s also putting together a book.

Enough said. She makes me look like a pansy. Like most women AROUND THE WORLD, she has little help. Unlike me, where even with three kids, the adults still outnumber the children. And yet, we find ourselves running around like headless chickens when all three are up and about. I don’t have a job, but I do have stuff to see to as part of my “job” manning the homefront. I look at women like Kristen and wonder how the hell they do it. Why can’t I do it?

Time management. That’s the key. It must be. I’ve always been poor at it and now with so many little people pulling me in all directions, I’m finding it even harder to focus on prioritizing and managing. But that’s what my handy-dandy notebook is for - the notebook I’ve long ignored because I was getting so disorganized, I couldn’t even sit down to list the things to do, in order to get organized. Time to dust it off and open it to a fresh page and get myself back into gear. 

So the state of my life right now – chaos. But I know it will get better. Once I can move about again (yeah, I do the whole confinement gig), strap the baby into the carseat and baby carrier, and once school starts, I think things should get better. But right now, it’s just total and utter chaos. Day in, day out.

It will get better and I know it.