{"id":1451,"date":"2008-12-18T10:18:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-18T15:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2008-12-18T10:32:29","modified_gmt":"2008-12-18T15:32:29","slug":"do-you-have-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2008\/12\/18\/do-you-have-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you have the time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the things about having a baby in the house, I think the thing that has been the toughest is the intensity <\/em>of it — the absolute lack of time for anything that isn’t caring for the baby, or making dinner, or doing laundry, or tidying up, or somehow caring for the bigger boys. The simple lack of time. I remember back before the baby was born, on the days when I wasn’t working I’d take a nap in the afternoon and then come downstairs and have a wee snack on the couch while I read a couple of chapters of my book. I think back to those times with a kind of wonder. Did I really have that much spare time to myself? How did I do it? Where did that time come from and more importantly, where did it go and when for the love of god will it come back? <\/p>\n

I feel that lack of down time, lack of “me” time, even more acutely right now when I look at my collection of holiday crafts through the years. When we decorated the house for Christmas, out came samples of all my little crafty projects: handmade stockings, several different kinds of ornaments, folk-art painted wood decorations, handmade candles, little fridge-magnet marbles with cutouts from old Christmas cards… I love crafty stuff at the best of times, but I really feel the absence of being able to do any of this stuff this year. I was part of a cookie exchange this year and finding the time to make 10 dozen cookies nearly killed me, whereas I’d normally make shortbread and peanut brittle gifts for all of my family and many of my friends without breaking a sweat, and had time to make homemade holiday crafts on my own and with the boys. I’m not sure if it’s the “factor of three” or if it’s just that Lucas is a particularly demanding baby — especially now that he’s officially crawling and terrorizing all of us! — but there is simply no time that isn’t filled to overflowing with rather uninspiring domestica, and an undone to-do list of rather epic proportions. The list is an odd mix of things I must and want to do: everything from clean the toilets and organize the closet to back up the blog and paint our bedroom. Every day is a triage of what absolutely cannot wait one more day to be done.<\/p>\n

My life is very full right now, in the best possible way. I truly believe that raising these boys, that being a part of this family, is what I have been called to do in life, and I love it. But as recently as a few weeks ago, I also felt completely panicked by the weight of the things that were required of me, the things that ensured I had only a handful of minutes every day to do what I absolutely had to do to keep my sanity: peck out a few e-mails and a blog post, or run to the gym. <\/p>\n

I’m trying to feel more philosophical about it now, to remember that some day I’ll look back on these days with nostalgic longing. I try to keep in mind that Lucas’s babyness is already escaping, his toddlerhood looming, even though he’s only been with us for a breath or two. I cast my mind back to Baby Simon and Baby Tristan, lo those many — but so few! — years ago, to remember that I probably felt this way then, and yet I survived to tell the tale.<\/p>\n

But as I walked through the craft store yesterday, casting a greedy eye on row after row of project ideas, I felt the weight of that physical need for time and space. I made those marble magnets two years ago, when Simon would have been coming up on three and Tristan almost five. So I know that by the time Lucas is three, in just a couple of brief years from now, I will have managed enough balance in my life to find that creative space again. I might even pick up a book in the afternoons, one of these days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the things about having a baby in the house, I think the thing that has been the toughest is the intensity of it — the absolute lack of time for anything that isn’t caring for the baby, or making dinner, or doing laundry, or tidying up, or somehow caring for the bigger boys. … Continue reading “Do you have the time?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-is-all-about-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}