I tried

I tried this week.

I tried to be the best mommy.

I tried to be the best wife.

I tried to be the best professional.

I tried.

By Friday though I had a crushing feeling of not succeeding and a monstrous headache. 

This week was the first full week of school.  My body screamed of exhaustion.  My house was and is a M.E.S.S. and we need to so desperately go to the store.  My boys did not get their fair share of mommy and it broke my heart.  My milk supply for Cannon is diminishing and through it all I feel as though I am running myself ragged and I personally feel like I am failing.  I can barely even provide my boys with their needs.

I tried as hard as I could this week.  Last night, I could not even laugh at my little big boy who was being a big goof.  I tried to snuggle with my precious Cannon yet all I could do was just close my eyes and try to let my brain stop from the major overload that had started spiraling out of control two weeks ago. 

This week I could barely find the time to stay hydrated, to focus on my family, to give all I could at home, to even find the time during the day to use the bathroom.

This week I struggled with the mommy guilt that comes from being a working mommy.  Here I wanted to spend as much time with my precious boys who love me so much and yet my time, a majority of my time was at or focusing on work.  When I was at school, I wasn't with my boys.  When we got home, I fixed dinner, fed Cannon, bathed Cannon, got Cannon ready for bed, all the while Chandler was being cared for by daddy so I felt like I was missing out.  Then it was time to tuck Chandler in, feed Cannon again, put Cannon down and then turn on the computer for an hour or more of lesson planning, making activities, researching ideas for the new program we are trying at school, pump, be frustrated with the lack of milk I was producing.  Knowing it is not enough, and realizing that our frozen supply is too quickly disappearing and coming to grips that the one way I am still able to provide the best for Cannon is not working.  Then I fall, and literally I mean fall into bed or even on the couch so exhausted that three out of the five nights I couldn't even bring myself to take out my contacts or wash my face until the middle of the night when I would wake up with a start worrying about my boys, thinking of some great idea I need to try at school to help ease the stress or the fact that I could have possibly missed my alarm going off because I am so tired.  Then I get up again, to start it all over again.  We rush around to get ready, I kiss the boys good bye and the idea of what the day holds hangs over like a cloud.  Today will be better, I would tell myself but in my heart I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I am doing it all wrong.  My boys love me and would do anything for me shouldn't I be there for them?  I know that I am so blessed to have the summers but I feel like in a blink of an eye they grow so fast and the next thing you know they are starting school and then time doesn't ever stop flying by.

I know we will find our new pace and schedule and things will slow down and work will get better, but for the time being I have to call the doctor to ask about what formula Cannon needs and sadly come to the reality that maybe I am choosing work of the needs of my baby.  I have to worry about the fact that I need to make an impact daily into little lives yet I am so overwhelmed that I as the tears start to fall it hits me so hard that "this", this that I am so "stressed" about is not stress.  What I, we, Cannon experienced this summer was stress.  What I am experiencing is not stress.  There is no reason to allow such things to stress me, to exhaust me, to overwhelm me.  I have fought a tough fight, Cannon has fought a battle and we are on the uphill "winning" side.  That was stress...this....well...this is just a bump in the road, a hurdle that quickly will be out of the way and when things calm down I will look back and be able to know that I accomplished the race, I may not have won.  But I ran hard and it was tough but I will again try.  Next week, today, tomorrow I will try my best.  To be the best mommy, the best wife, the best teacher and again next week might be just as hard but at least I will know that it is survivable.  I did not know if craniosynostosis was survivable, but it was, so I now know that even under the pressure of all this, this too is survivable.  I will survive, WE will survive.

Now I am off to spend as much time with my boys, well...and clean and doing laundry, and lesson planning, and church, and grocery shopping, formula shopping, celebrating a birthday, cooking pancakes and the weekend begins!