An Inflection Point Caused by a Brief Moment of Sanity

So I had a really fun and somewhat contemplative weekend. I got to spend two nights celebrating my dear friend's birthday - accompanied by an amazing dinner at the Madera restaurant at Rosewood and a totally surprise flash mob one afternoon while lounging poolside! Once again K graciously held down the fort, not complaining a single time. In between the birthday celebration events I did come back to home base for a day of baseball and playground time with the kids, including experimentation with our new pitching machine which the girls are getting involved with as they help load up the balls and also toss them back when Ry's done hitting. And I don't think it was too gender stereotypical to call them his ball girls since they loved it and got some great throwing practice in! Today our typical weekend day with our 3 kids included one kid's birthday party to go to (the boys only), some errands to run (the girls only), a fun gardening project (to do, an afternoon run (me only), and then a successful breakfast for dinner meal (inspired by Ry).

There was a point in the middle of the week that I started to feel a very unfamiliar feeling. At first I chose to ignore it, then the next day I felt it again so I mentioned something to K. Then I chatted about it a little with my dear friend (the birthday girl) since she's known me for 15+ years. So at the risk of sounding crazy, here's what it is. I'm starting to feel a little antsy! It's not that I'm bored, since life is very busy and very fulfilling as it is, between the family I cherish, work that I love and am challenged by, and hanging out with all my dear friends. Antsy-ness is different than boredom, although I will not attempt the technical definition of either one.

But I've realized a few things have changed recently. Since I've finished the first pass at my book, I no longer have a big project that I'm working on. The book project filled all the available time I had and some of my mental space the last two years. Other than the few years when I was most busy after having the girls, I've always had something going on ("on the side," I guess you could say). For ~ 5 years up until shortly after I had Ry, I was into the mother of all time-consuming sports -- triathlons. For the 8 years before that, I did a seminary degree at night and on the weekends.

The other dynamic which is contributing to this is that our routine with the kids has gotten ever so slightly more manageable in the last few weeks. Dare I say easier, at the risk of it all changing by tomorrow morning. The kids are arguing less and playing more collaboratively in surprising ways such as drawing together, reading stories to each other, and building things (tinker toy towers or elaborate train tracks). I can make a meal on the weekend without the kids stressing me out or me wanting to yell at them to stop driving me crazy! Amazing, right? I was able to take the girls browsing today at the nursery and come home and plant veggies and create a fairy garden, and it was actually enjoyable. The girls were able to hangout out for two hours at the baseball game yesterday while I chatted with a friend and we all had fun there. My 9-year-old mother's helper easily managed them for an inning while her mom and I went into the dugout to wrangle the crazy group of kids that comprise our fall ball team (and a bit of yelling was required here since they were HANGING off the ceiling rafters and doing all kinds of other things not at all conducive to the game, and I'm not exaggerating).

I'm not saying this to suggest that we have the parenting thing down. It's actually very confusing to me that things feel different than they did a few weeks ago. But it's part of the reason that I'm feeling just a tiny bit antsy and wondering if there's something else I should do in the evenings after the girls go to bed at 8pm. And I'm trying out a different routine with my work which seems to help with my life balance. Instead of logging onto my work right after the girls go to bed and trying to minimize my time online, I'm intentionally not working most nights until around 10pm. I've found that work fills the time and space you give it, and if I wait until later in the evening I can prioritize just the urgent or really important things that need to be addressed before the next day. So in my brief moments of reflection during my run, I came up with a few ideas for productive things I can do with my apparently extra time. We'll see where this goes, if anywhere!

• Putting more time into my running, since I'm just starting to enjoy it again. Unfortunately this doesn't work well with my schedule as we head into fall/winter 
• Seriously start a new sport, instead of just dabbling (like I did with aerial yoga) 
• Volunteer more - I have at least one opportunity where a friend working on a China-based outreach program asked for help last year when I had much less time, and also another area that has been on my mind since last week 
• Something creative - another writing project, finishing the mosaic I started in the summer, or planning the kids' rooms that I plan to change completely in the next 6-12 months. Maybe even a total room swap, but regardless repainting will be involved, so the old murals I did will need to go 

I'm just grateful to have the mental space and a few moments in my day to even think about ideas for other fun things to do. And for a mom of three little ones it feels like a huge blessing and an absolute luxury.