Keeping Up

Yesterday morning Ezra crawled into our bed with his cold little toes and curled up next to me. He has the most perfect way of tucking in right against me and making me feel that perfect mix of sleepy and happy to have my baby lying on my shoulder, even though he's not a baby any more and makes sure we all know it.

I asked him if he needed anything.

"Just snuggles, Mama." He was almost asleep before he finished the phrase.

It wasn't long before alarms went off and it was time to greet the day. It was all too easy to turn it off and cuddle a little longer with my littlest.

But ignoring the alarm means less time for all there is to do, and that pile never gets any smaller. The simple daily household chores are the hardest for me to complete, at least on Wednesdays when I teach so long that I cannot stand to sacrifice the few hours I spend with my boys that day to be wasted on washing dishes or clothes.

So on Wednesdays I ignore and put off, leaving Wednesday's work for Thursday when I have a bit more time before I teach again. But Thursdays I drag because of the weight of Wednesday's load and I find Wednesday's work spilling to Friday and even the weekend.

The feeling of trying to "keep up" on everything that needs to be done is almost more exhausting than the actual work. When I write it all on paper it seems to work, but when it comes to the actual getting up and "doing" on Wednesdays it all falls apart and I find myself scrambling to catch up before the weekend comes.

So this week? No more scramble. A new routine begins tomorrow. I shifted absolutely everything off of Wednesdays that was possible, and while it is still a very full day, I hope it will alleviate the overwhelming feeling that I'm constantly behind. This girl just can't live that way.

I don't know why I feel so compelled to do *everything*, I just do, and after 29 years I'm finally starting to figure out how to reign that in to some degree.