It’s an important reminder to note how fast time goes. But not always necessarily in the sad “They’re growing up too quickly, how is this happening?” way… it’s also important to remind ourselves that things change quickly when raising young children.
The chaos doesn’t stay the same.
The exhaustion fluctuates.
The difficult things differ.
The joy remains and grows and the challenges come and go in varying degrees.
As quickly as summer came and as quickly as it’s winding down, I’m reminded that hard seasons pass. I find that the timing of summer ending closely aligns with the feeling of things settling a bit in my life. My youngest is almost 11 months and we’ve, dare I say, gotten into some sort of family of five rhythm that is working pretty well for us.
There are still PLENTY of challenges, of course, but I feel we are out of the initial newborn/figuring out how to manage three children haze (for the most part) and right now things feel strong and happy and fun.
I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘balanced,’ but I think I have come to terms with the fact that my life won’t feel balanced for a long, long time. And I actually do think I am okay with that.
My confidence levels have risen and I feel I am able to manage the kids out on adventures better. We just got back from a road trip to NY (just me and my three girls) to visit family and friends and it went really, really well.
A few months ago, I tried this exact same trip and it went really, really poorly. I was at my peak overwhelm at that point and I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time.
Why, exactly, did I think driving about five hours in a car with a 5-month-old, 2-year-old , and a 4-year-old (without another adult) during the week when I had work deadlines to meet would be a sound idea?
I think I just thought, Hey I used to do this when I had two kids… I can manage it.
