The little people are EVERYWHERE!!! Protect yourself!!

Don't let this angelic picture fool you!! 

Overwhelmed.

I finally feel outnumbered with 5 kids at home. I like a clean house, but... for example, there's little boxes full of baby clothes sitting in the middle of the kids' room that is the youngest's temporary 'dresser' because it's just too much to keep up with the switching of clothes sizes as she rapidly grows. I finally got around to scraping the table off of nail polish from the 4 and 6 year old's practicing for womanhood. I felt like I had a clean house just by doing that. I managed to create a nook for myself and my husband in the porch. I'm proud to say we have enjoyed it, but letting the kids have free reign over house while we're in there may not be the best idea... it's a work in progress. My 2 year old is officially evil, making her demands as she sees fit. And my poor 9 year old (only) son is caught in the middle of it all. At least I have some company whilst we both look at each other and pull our hair out together.

I honestly don't know what I'd do without the supportive husband that I have. He sees the season of all this. He comes home from a stressful job to a crazy house and never seems to despise my need for help even when he's only been home for 42 seconds.

But it's hard. I'm not a little kid person. I know that sounds ironic because I have so many children, but it's true. My need for intellectual conversation is like an unquenchable thirst. My closest friends probably think it's either annoying or endearing as I constantly reach out with emails and messages, just to have some adult conversation, as I'm stuck at home most the time with these little people. I'm just gonna say they find it endearing, so I can keep my self-esteem up. Yeah... we'll go with that.

For some reason, I haven't been writing lately. I can feel it too. It's so therapeutic for me to write, so when I'm not writing, I'm not doing "well." I have so many things that I want to write about, it's overwhelming to know where to start. So I've made a list and am going to go through it, one by one, so you'll have to bear with me. My goal is to be better at consistency. But I know that it's so important to protect my "me time". That "thing" I like to do and find some healing in doing so. It has to be protected. It doesn't just come up and say, "Hey, guess what?! You are going to write today! Here, let me get my screen on and I'll get the chair underneath you so you can sit and write, so you have to do it. I'll even shut facebook off for you!" ..... I wish.

So to all the busy parents out there... protect your time. It's great spending time with your kids, but if you don't protect your retreat, that thing that you've found healing to you, that thing that de-stresses you... than you'll slowly be no good to those you love.

Here's a related, but unrelated picture of my strawberry blossoms this summer. (Related because my garden has also kept me busy, but I've successfully harvested SOMETHING from my garden. Yay. But unrelated because this post is not about strawberries, it's my pitiful excuse as to why I've been quiet lately.)