Dearest Daughters,
Your daddy and I took a much-needed trip to the Sonoma coast/West Marin this past weekend.
It was simple. Just as life should be.
I crave simplicity, but it's something I have a hard time achieving. Perhaps, because I see it as just that, an achievement, an objective to be reached. Because I'm a recovering perfectionist. Perhaps, because I'm a detail person (to a manic, super-human degree) and a worrier--genetically, psychologically. Perhaps because of a society that doles out imaginary medals for Highly Individualized, Most Stressed, and Busiest; with a special select category for Mothers.
With you two small girls, getting out of the door to go to the park, let alone to run errands, seems difficult. I stop myself before we even start, with worries, concerns (and recently anxiety) over what to wear, what to pack, who will get hungry, whose nap-time will be interrupted all packed into a ginormous diaper bag.
Even when I imagine a simple life, it's complicated. I go on and on to your daddy about our little farm with goats and chickens. And a wrap around porch looking out onto my vegetable garden. And, oh, I guess we'll just have to hire someone to tend the orchard. And I'll go to Costco once a month, but I'll have to make sure to get enough butter. And does Amazon deliver to the country?
Life is not complicated.
I make life complicated.
Ironically, I'm finding that planning actually makes life simpler. And routines coupled with discipline in keeping to those routines (go figure!) makes life simpler. And not being a perfectionist, so hard on myself about what I feed or expose my family to (i.e. packing fruit snacks and buying Cheetos and eating spaghetti once a week--instead of never buying processed foods and making elaborate, organic, healthy meals every day, and NO TELEVISION EVER #yikes).
Here are some more practical and psychological things that I'm doing to make my own life simpler:
- keeping food and water, extra clothes, diapers and wipes in the car (more than what was in our earthquake kit already) so I hardly need to pack a diaper bag anymore, as long as our car is nearby
- stop obsessively predicting the worst possible child-related disasters that could happen in public
- pizza night, spaghetti night, fried rice night (Lola cooks!); we might carbo-load, but for anyone who plans meals for their family, you'll know what a relief it is to not have to give any brain space to planning what's for dinner
- taking naps with my kids instead of planning for dinner
- not expecting, forcing myself to run errands with two children
- sticking to our routines: park/outside play, nap, lunch, inside play, a movie, dinner, bath, books, bed
- discussing plans and expectations for our weekend with beadle, including planning in I-time and us-time, otherwise it doesn't happen; we're not so good at this yet
- unplugging. setting personal limits on computer time. not keeping up with my favorite blogs, news outlets and facebook posts. sad face/happy face.
- reading more books, listening to more music
- taking lots of walks and hikes, with and without you girls, breathing in nature, not worrying about a thing, not even the fact that I reallly reallllly realllllly have to pee; there's gotta be an out-house or decent log-for-stability/brush-for-privacy combo out here somewhere!
Coastal pastoral: my favorite combination!
Okay, off to take a nap with my baby girl!
Love,
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