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Winter//Discontent

Things are not well. As a matter of fact, they are pretty unwell.

Work. OH work. How does one maintain an open door policy when the need to shut the door and cry is so great? Something has to give, but it hasn't.

Home. My home sweet home that I do love so much but the project list is not moving because it is a daily task just to keep it together with a very energetic toddler who cannot get out and run around and be a toddler. Our commute time home has doubled, even tripled, on most nights so we get home, get dinner and get to bed. The time we spent playing and coloring and getting a few things done is spent on the road staring at brake lights and snow banks as high as the eye can see.

My me time. I see the runners on the Esplanade with their millions of layers and frozen tears and don't remember my own runs against snow drifts with chapped red legs and impossible miles ahead. I just miss it. I am so, so jealous. I want to get up and layer up and go for a run in this terrible shit outside. If I  do happen to wake early to go to the gym and hop on the treadmill it just takes so much effort. Shoveling that I physically cannot do. Sliding up and down the driveway. Calling just to make sure the gym has even opened. I haven't had a good, solid run in maybe two weeks and it is breaking my heart.

This new baby. Oh this poor second child without any hint that she is on her way with the lack of newborn accessories that have been readied. I need to pull clothes out of the basement and wash them and fold them and get them ready for teeny tiny arms and legs, but the idea tires me out and we still need to go get the changing table and bins that we plan on buying to house them because who needs a crib at this point anyways. We are co-sleepers and the crib is in pieces and will eventually make its way up too but not right now. So it stays in the basement with the other things, waiting for us to make a move before these last 9 weeks fly by and she is here. Maybe we should at least get some diapers...but the hospital was so generous with them last time that we could probably last at least a week on those freebies alone.

But then, there is a good day, A Friday night that ends in (and is punctuated by) tears leads into a Saturday morning of having slept in extra late, A toddler who wakes up fresh faced and excited about the day. A grocery and Target trip that is fun (and ends up costing less than our weekly budget calls for), Gymnastics class where there is no need for me to threaten having to leave because her energy is so great that she can't stop tackling her friends. A quick trip to the library where there is a clean spot right out front and a book that I was at least #180 in the queue for ready for me to pick up. A nap that is not met with tears and screaming and banging on the door, but instead lasts so long I have to wake up from my own and sneak into her room to snuggle her awake. My dear husband coming home from all day at school to take Maddie off my hands and let me cook a new recipe and start my new book. A glimmer of hope that despite three more days of snow, maybe someday spring will be here. Maybe we will wake up on Sunday and say 'fuck it' and get out of the house for an adventure anyway.

This is winter, maybe our hardest yet, but there is always a spring, even in the middle of a snowstorm.

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