A Day Off

thecorporatesister.com

SOMETIMES IT’S easier to give in.  Sometimes it lessens the pressure. Sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable.

Life is busy.  Life is fast.  I feel like I am a human hamster on a wheel sometimes.  I detest how my life appears to be sucked into a vortex otherwise known as the school runs.  I hate that it feels like Groundhog Day all the time.

“Come on, lads.  It’s half seven (am) time to get up for school.”

“Come on, lads.  It’s half seven (pm) time to get ready for bed.”

“Come on, lads. It’s nearly eight o’clock (pm).  Time to brush teeth.”

“Come on, lads.  It’s a quarter past eight.  Time to get in the car for school.”

Over and over again.  Every day.  Every week.

It’s crazy.

If I feel like that I know everyone else must too.  Routine is good.  I like routine but sometimes it’s just boring and life sucking.

We had a lovely Christmas.  It was a quiet one with bursts of energy.  On the 13^th December 2014 one of our boys suffered what they called “a complete reaction” to something.  He has since been tested and advised to avoid all of the nuts and all of the fish with a serious reduction where other foodstuffs and household items are concerned.

It was a tough experience for him.  There was the physical reaction followed by lots of drugs and needles.  Then a nasty cough got worse so an anti-biotic was introduced.  Shortly after that there were hearing tests on a Saturday afternoon in Dublin. 

Life is busy.  Life is fast.  Life can be confusing and frightening.  Particularly for a seven year old who is nowhere near making sense of it all.

So when there was a sensitive moment at the school gate this week that proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back with tears and a request to go home/refusal to go to school, I stopped, listened and assessed.

My immediate reaction feeling I didn’t have the energy to deal with *this* and then it occurred to me that if I, as an adult, his parent, didn’t want to deal with it at 8.45am, how on earth could I expect a tired and washed out seven year old to.

So I said, ok, get in the car.  We can go home.

It made me thankful again that I am not in a position where I have to rush off to work following the school run.  To do so would naturally have left me with no choice other than to frogmarch him into school because for him to stay at home would mean the same for me.  

Sometimes the load becomes too heavy and our bodies send us a little sign to stop, take a moment and recharge.

There is a lot of emphasis on being mindful lately and I think it can be easy to forget that sometimes our kids need us to be mindful for them.

And if that means taking a day off school to recharge some batteries, then so be it.   

Todays blog post is brought to you via Aisling of BabySteps who has provided us all with a timely reminder for January to just, stop, step back and breathe.