Monday, December 20, 2010

Slowing Down to a Halt

Even with a more chilled attitude towards the holidays, I still find myself getting a tad stressed. This year has been a bit more nuts as due to some bad planning, I am nowhere done my shopping. And I really wanted to host a little something at my place (very little as I have NO space).  End result is that I spent most of today crazed. I was trying to pick up at least a couple of rooms and catch up on laundry so that we wouldn't spend H's first day of vacation cleaning. R was extra whiny (she's trying to crawl so lots of frustration) and Piper just kept numerous tantrums. I kept trying to put R down for her nap but every time I got her to sleep, Piper would have a tantrum. At one point, I could feel my temper just boiling under the surface. I could barely control my urge to just start screaming back at Piper who was throwing a fit in her room. A friend reminded me to center myself and I kept wanting to do this but it seemed like even finding a second to do this simple act of breathing was just not going to happen.

As I was lying down with R for the tenth time to try and nurse her to sleep, I just gave up. I resolved myself to just lying there while she napped. I pulled her close to me, and began to breath with her sleep inhalations. The sweet feel of body snuggled against mine, the smile of contentment on her face. She was so totally relaxed into me. Safe. And  I just stopped. I stopped worrying. I stopped fretting about the house getting clean. About the shopping getting done. It didn't matter. All that mattered was this moment. A moment of stopping. Just being still.

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