I have to remind myself that Enzo has only been 3 for a little over a month.  Typically it feels like time is flying by, so it’s somewhat surprising to me that it’s really not going that quickly at all.  I definitely need to slow down and be more present. I’ve also found myself shifting my priorities and goals and trying not to fit so much into so little time so I don’t feel as overwhelmed.  I’ve been getting a lot of reading done, which has been awesome and don’t feel bad about putting off little projects I wanted to get done.

The aromatherapy studying is still happening, just at a slower pace.  We had so much going on over the past few months and now I finally feel like I can just breathe and take my time with blends.  I’ve come up with a few really good ones, and a few that need work, but more importantly I don’t feel as rushed and when I feel rushed, my blends aren’t as good.  I think that’s the case with everything, though.  You need to be able to give things the proper amount of time they deserve, but you also have to enjoy what you’re doing or the outcome won’t be as good as it could be.

There was a point a few months ago (maybe more, maybe less) where I felt so overwhelmed that if the kids weren’t in bed by 8:00 and kept getting up and wouldn’t stay down I would feel almost angry and put out because they were encroaching on my time and I needed my time to do things.  Now, I feel differently.  Sure, right before our trip I have things I need to do so the past couple of nights with fussy children not wanting to go to sleep has been frustrating, but at one point I finally just realized that it is what it is.  No, I may not finish a few things, but that’s life. Were they really that imperative?  No.  So, instead I went upstairs, picked up Phoebe (for the umpteenth time because she wouldn’t let us put her down in her crib without crying big crocodile tears) and I carried her to our bed and held her and eventually fell asleep with her on my chest.  Last night Josh and I took turns with the kiddos and eventually they slept – just not on time.  Oh well.

I’m even at a point where I really felt like we needed to get the kids to stay in their rooms all night and it was hard and stressful, and now that we’ve kind of just caved and let the kids crawl in bed with us in the middle of the night Enzo has started getting better about staying in his room after we put him down and he’s stopped asking to sleep on the floor.  We don’t always get a good night’s sleep, but I think I’ve actually been sleeping better now that we’ve just decided to let Enzo crawl into bed and if Phoebe starts crying in her crib to just bring her in.  They won’t always bed share, just like Enzo will one day be fully potty trained and they’ll both give up their nuks.  Working full time means we don’t see them as often as we’d like to, so I think at times they just need/want that extra time to cuddle and feel safe.

A very long post to really just say that I’m trying not to sweat the small stuff.  It’s a work in progress, but I know that we’re all so much happier when we can manage our stress and just take life one day at a time and make the best of everything.  I didn’t realize just how anal I could be about little things until this past weekend when we were gardening and then decided to fill the water table.  Normally I would have been more careful about the kids not getting their clothes really dirty and would have tried to contain the messes more, but it doesn’t bother me as much anymore.  I kind of like that I’m able to just shrug my shoulders at possibly ruined clothes and not care if they get completely soaked while not in their swimwear.  Who cares!  I want to be just as carefree as my munchkins.

Anyhoo…

I had my first acupuncture appointment on Monday and I’m feeling hopeful.  I have an herb blend I’m taking now and didn’t have any negative reaction so the needles, so with a little work I’m hoping the whole hives issue can be resolved.  As expected, I need to make some dietary changes, and so I’m doing that slowly.  I haven’t dropped everything cold turkey, but I’m trying to cut back a lot on things like dairy and gluten and processed items and eat more proteins and greens.  Actually, as he gave examples it sounded a lot like a paleo diet, so perhaps I should look into doing a Whole 30.  I don’t know if I have the willpower, though… I haven’t given up my chocolate and last night I confess I may have stress eaten one too many rolls… whoops.  Tomorrow is another day and I can try again.  I already switched to gluten free oatmeal and coconut milk yogurt, so there’s that!   As our friend Daniel Tiger would say, “Try, try, try, try, try it again!” 😉