Choosing Sleep
Have you ever had a week or month that can only be summed up as bananas? The last month has felt that way for me. It is probably surprising to no one other than me that this was the case. If you looked at my life from the outside, you’d see a stay at home mom with three young kids, none of whom are enrolled in full day school yet. A wife whose husband leaves the house by 4:45am for work and often returns after 7pm (and sometimes later). A woman who despite having a very full time job as a stay at home mom has decided to write novels and run this blog. A crazy woman, if you will.
This crazy woman has always prided herself on GETTING. THINGS. DONE. A few months ago I heard about the six kinds of working genius (linked here if you’re interested in learning more about this fascinating topic). It turns out I am filled with tenacity (not actually a surprise, but fun to call it that) and am all about pushing projects and tasks to completion to get results. This tenacity served me very well as a teacher, and it serves me well in running this blog. However, tenacity becomes trickier when I apply it to being a stay at home mom (which is, in fact, my real job right now). It certainly applies to the lesser parts of the job—my kitchen is usually clean, the laundry does not pile up around here, and everyone makes it to school and appointments on time. It is a harder “genius” to apply to the bigger parts of the job—raising tiny humans.
In this season of life, I am called to give my best energy to my family. That may always be true, but it is certainly true now. It is hard to “push the task to completion” when the task is raising your kids. It would involve making time go faster and obsessing about doing as much as I can with my kids all the time. I refuse to do either of those things, as either of those things would detract from my motherhood experience. It is already so clear to me that I am in the midst of living the days I will look back on with the most joy. What a gift it is to wake up my children every morning and have them practically jump out of bed to give me hugs that knock me backwards. What a gift it is to spend thirty minutes preparing delicious, healthy meals that my children immediately scoff at and pick apart both physically and verbally as they approach the table every night. Ok, maybe that part of stay at home motherhood is, in fact, not my favorite. But you get the point.
In order to give my best energy to my family every day, I have to take care of myself. The last month has included RSV and PNEUMONIA passing through my house. It has been, in a word, bananas. Fortunately, I have somehow evaded all the germs and my three month old son has so far only had sniffles. I am very thankful for both of these things. That being said, I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night. As I rocked my son back to sleep at 4:30 in the morning for the third time that night and listened to my husband’s footsteps head quietly down the stairs and outside to go conquer the day at work, I considered just staying up and squeezing in a workout. (Tenacity, you see.) And then I remembered that I am a stay at home mother with three young kids who keep getting sick and coughing all over every inch of my house…and I chose sleep. And I chose to eat the biggest meals possible throughout the day because my body is working in overdrive these days, and I need more fuel.
So this is a reminder to anyone reading this to “put on your own mask before assisting others” as they tell me every flight. Take care of yourself—mind, body, and soul—and watch the rest fall into place. I am working on big things in hopes of growing this blog to reach a wider audience in 2026, but for now I am going to be jolly and joyful, eat snacks, and sleep.
