Better

I feel like I have to get better at this. At mothering. At blogging. At photographing. Lately I have been exploring links-within-links to various blogs from as close as this state to as far away as New Zealand. There are a lot of talented, thoughtful, creative people out there. It made me hopeful that I too could be one of them, but it also made me feel woefully sad and inadequate. I don't have the TIME or the ENERGY to be thoughtful very often, nor do I use my creativity or talents enough. Most of the time I am wrestling with my 6 1/2-month-old, trying with mixed success to: diaper or de-diaper; clothe him; put him down to bed; bathe him; feed him; get him in-and-out of the carseat/stroller. It doesn't sound like much, but it certainly fills a 14-hour day. There are days, like today, when I haven't gotten to bed just early enough the night before. When I was awakened after midnight by baby's cries, then again just hours later by my working-late husband who was baking a pizza. Follow that with more cries from my little one when at 5:30 he had decided enough! with sleep and wasn't it time to begin the day with crib gymnastics?

Fast forward to 3 hours later, when after a 25-minute powernap, baby was ready to go at it again. So as he was screaming himself into a hyperventilative state in his crib, I raced through my shower madly scrubbing, soaping, rinsing, drying and creaming, thinking, If this is my day today, then I should at least be clean for it.

Does it get easier? Will I get better at this? Any of it? Will I not want to cry on almost a daily basis? Will I learn to live in the moment and accept all for what it is and simply BREATHE?

Oh, this living. It's hard. And the mothering thing? Even harder.