Catching Up With Myself

I noticed yesterday that I hadn’t posted a blog for a couple of months. I’ve been trying to work out what it is that has created this gap in my ramblings. Then I found this one...

Life certainly knows how to get away from you sometimes. After the traumatic experience of the Butterfly’s first days at school and the sheer excitement when the Mauritian began his new job I looked up and we were half way through October. So much for slowing down absorbing each day   and seeing the world through the eyes of my children.

With the official arrival of spring came the need to clean house and get out visiting or having visitors. We’ve managed to have weekends full of visitors but unfortunately the spring cleaning that this house so desperately needs got washed out. I have never seen so much rain, I was wondering if here at World’s end we were on our way to joining Atlantis. With so much rain comes “cabin fever.” There are only so many indoor games to play, only so many pictures one can draw or paint and only so many cookies mum can tolerate baking. Its hard work keeping two kids occupied during 2 weeks of holiday when it rains everyday!

However, these two weeks of rained soaked school holiday has also brought the busyness to a slow stroll and I have finally found the time to catch my breath and focus on what will need doing as we begin the last quarter of 2012.

We have celebrated fourteen years of marriage, the Lollipop is fifteen months old and the Butterfly has eight weeks left of school before the Christmas holidays. In a couple of day’s time, my lifelong friend arrives back at World’s end after a four-week visit back home. Her return marks the beginning of another period of busyness as we begin our wind down to our visit home. Up until these school holidays I have had a never ending “to do” list which I have endeavoured to cross something off it every day. I managed, mostly, but in the process, I seemed to have managed to tie myself in knots of confusion and neglected other more important tasks. By the last week of school, which was an extremely busy week for the Butterfly I was looking forward to the holidays and the chance to concentrate on what I needed to do. I also planned to ensure that both children were occupied and busy for the holidays. Yep I had it all worked out, I even made a schedule!

But, as normally happens, in my life at least, nothing goes to plan. The first few days of the holiday, it absolutely poured buckets of rain and blew icy cold gales too. So though we are well equip to endure a walk in the rain the wind just made it far too cold. So we stayed inside and very soon what indoor amusements I had so carefully planned were used up. By the Wednesday afternoon I had given up all hope of getting anything planned done, so I made myself a pot of coffee, grabbed a box of biscuits out the tin and sat down on the couch and watch “101 Dalmatians” with my girls! What an awesome time we had, just the three of us sipping out of our respective bottles or cups and polishing off the biscuits. When the sun came out later that afternoon the Butterfly asked if we could go for a walk, why not I thought it may be our only outing this holiday. So we went, happily strolling along talking about the needless things that five-year-old chatterboxes find to talk about. We popped into the grocery store for some supplies and when we left five minutes later the heavens had opened. Yet again there were sheets of rain falling, and I had left the house without any raincoats, what a silly mother! So I told the Butterfly that we would have to stay under shelter until it stopped, but the Butterfly said “But mum I love walking in the rain!” and I thought why not. So off the three of us went shrieking with delight as we were soaked through in a matter of seconds. The Butterfly had her head up facing the sky and her mouth open because she was thirsty and needed a drink of water. It was raining so hard she almost choked. The Lollipop was squealing trying desperately to catch a raindrop. Waiting to cross the road we were splashed by the passing cars; I looked like I was wearing war paint from the mud the cars churned up. By the time the rain did stop we were almost home and glad for it, by now the wind was picking up and it was getting cold.

It was while the girls were happily splashing in a hot bath warming up and I was cooking supper that I decided that whatever needed doing could wait until the new school term. For now I was going to be on holiday too! If it meant chasing bubbles in the backyard instead of making the beds then that’s what I was going to do. I was going to slow down, look at life from a lower level, and have a little fun.

So that’s what I did, though I did manage to convince the Butterfly that I would trade her help with the housework in the mornings for a game of “6 Pin Bowling” in the passage. I must be the only mother who has even played hopscotch in the rain!

Now its half way through November, the weather finally has dried up and we are back to routine. The Mauritian no longer feels like he’s learning a new job. The Lollipop is absorbing new things every moment. The Butterfly is now “playing” cricket so my Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings are sorted for the rest of the year. My lifelong friend is home and adjusting to some changes and we are counting the days until we leave World’s end for our tropical holiday. I realised in a panic that we suddenly only had six weeks until we left. I was thinking we still had so much to organise and hoping I hadn’t left too much until the last minute. So I made a time with the Mauritian when we would sit down together and plan out what needed organising and who would do it. So we sat at the dining room table all prepared and ready to make plans, only to realise we didn’t have much to do anyway. We had been so busy we didn’t even realise how much we did! Needless to say, we were now at a bit of a loss about what to do with the time we had set aside.

Now with just thirty-seven days to go before we leave I am finding myself looking for things to do to make the waiting go quicker. The spring-cleaning has started and each day my house is looking a little brighter, cleaner and less cluttered. I’ve been baking again, but that’s another blog I’ll get to one day. I am also managing to keep to my resolve and not rush about trying to do everything at once. I make sure that we are all ready well within time in the mornings so we can all spend some quality time with each other. I spend the morning playing with the Lollipop and do my chores when she is napping. Pierre comes home at lunchtime now so I sit with him and chat about our day so far instead of doing the laundry. In short I just take my time doing things; the funny thing is I seem to be getting it all done anyway.

Yep now that I have finally caught up with myself and slowed myself down things are being achieved.