I’ve been trying to get Leo into a schedule.  And it’s the hardest thing to do because it’s like herding babies, he’s still going to sleep when he wants for as long as he wants, there’s really only so much I can do about it.  But I do it in the hopes that he’ll sleep better which will then help me sleep better.  Which will grealy improve my quality of life.

So it means I lose my footloose and fancy free lifestyle of doing what I want and just hauling him around. I wake him up religiously at 7, even though I’d rather let him sleep so I can enjoy my coffee in quietude.  My schedule is his schedule and that’s just the way it’s going to be for a while.

I only clued in yesterday that the time was changing.  So this a.m. in my sleep fogged state when Leo made sounds at 6:00 a.m. (yesterday time) I thought – I gotta get him up to get him on the new time.  So we got up, I fed him, made coffee and changed him.  Then I got Angus up so that he would have an easier time getting up for school tomorrow.  Then I sat down with my coffee and went to change my watch and realize I’ve totally screwed up.

I’ve gone the wrong way.  I was thinking 6 a.m. was 7 but it was actually (gulp) 5.   I’ve woken my kids up way way way too early and now realized they’ll need to stay up late to get on the new time schedule.  And Angus is in that 5 year old stage of talking non-stop.  Even when he needs to pause to find the words he needs next, there’s no pause, there’s no silence, there’s “Mom”, “Mom”, “Mom”  Until I want to say – “yes, i’m listening, because WHAT OTHER CHOICE DO I HAVE???”  but i don’t. 

And so here it is.  It’s the crack of dawn,  it’s dark and rainy outside,  the baby is making happy screamy sounds,  the 5 year old is talking non-stop, I’m barely awake and i realize it’s going to be the longest day of the year.  The Longest.

And I”m really cheesed off at myself for this.  I don’t mess up this royally all that often.  And i don’t mean that as an ego thing, it’s a control freak thing.  I keep my life fairly controlled so that I can maintain the illusion that I’m in control.  Which is why being on baby’s on-schedule schedule is so hard.  But really, the control thing is such an illusion.  It’s only partially true.  Because life happens all the time.  Floods, economic downfalls, baby’s “schedules” and time changes.

But even though I was cheesed off at myself I reminded myself that it doesn’t change who I really am.  You know, life happens but I”m still a roughly organized person whether I mess up the organization or not.  And it’s ok.  Time to let it go and move on.  

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, the who I really am stuff.  Because being  a parent of a baby is so intense.  There’s Baby Management stuff going on all the time.  It feels totally consuming.  But having been through it before I also know it won’t last.  It feels like Who I Am, and it is, I will always be a parent even when my kids are adults, but not  like this.  I will get more of my life back.  My youngest son will one day be able to do stuff for himself.  But for now I’ll enjoy the longest day of the year.