No One Told Me I Needed to Know How to Juggle

On the job description for motherhood, no one told me I needed to know how to juggle. And today I feel like someone keeps hucking chainsaws into the mix. 

My youngest (seven-month-old Jonas) has spoiled me by sleeping in for the past many months. So two-and-a-half-year-old Jack and I get up at about 7:30, come downstairs, turn on cartoons, and eat breakfast while I work on writing and emails and checking Groupon (shameless addiction). But little Jonas has been waking up earlier, and neither of us can adjust to the new routine. When do I write? When does Jack get his morning close-to-mama time? There's this baby wanting to eat his morning fruit and cereal mush. Before I even have my coffee! He's happy on the floor after his breakfast for a good chunk of time, but it's like he knows when I'm going to start trying to be productive. Then he demands my attention. Men.

Jonas rarely cries, and Jack's talkative nature is generally entertaining. It's just that, this morning, all things fell apart.

I'm not good at actual juggling. Why? It's hard for me to catch and think about catching at the same time. Again and again. I want to plan. Please give me a few minutes after saying, "Hey, a ball is coming your way," to let it all sink in. Then I can figure out where in my schedule to put the ball-catching, working it in between everything else. But juggling doesn't really go that way. And life doesn't always either. At times we don't even get a "think fast!"

Luckily, in this case, my desire to plan will play to my advantage, as long as I am willing to be flexible enough to alter my routine now that Jonas is demanding it to be altered.

But I had things down pat.

Oh well. Time to put down the whine and pick up the slack.

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!"(Tennyson l. 70)

Tennyson, Alfred. "Ulysses." Harvard.edu. n.p. n.d. Web. 30 May 2012. 

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