And then we remembered that the holidays aren't relaxing - especially if the night before Thanksgiving you try and close down the bar by dancing the night away drinking vodka tonics on an empty stomach. McDonald's breakfast can only help you so far...
I'll warn you now (if you haven't already gathered thus far) that this is more of a mom anxiety post. It's long overdue - we've been in such a groove lately thinking we had this whole work-life pendulum swing just the way we wanted. But December has arrived again to give us a good swift kick back into the reality that just as you think you've got it figured out, you don't.
At this time last year I was on the verge of checking myself into the hospital with the plague and seemed to "breeze" through this month. December always sends my stress level through the roof and I only do it to myself. I let myself get overwhelmed by all aspects of our life and I need to rely on Mike's laidbackness to get us through the month.
This year I volunteered at the national level to help facilitate at BDO's national continuing education conferences. For whatever reason, my stint at DU has left me itching to continue teaching but not able to get back there given the addition of Lily. BDO has been able to allow me to satisfy this need by molding the young minds of our associate levels - which means I need to travel more often. In addition, to meet some of the personal career goals I have, I've gone back to work pretty much full-time. Full-time in any other industry but not quite full-time in public accounting. I've taken on some new adventures and am excited to see where it leads me but second guess myself every other day wondering if I've bitten off more than I can chew. Especially when I'm up at 5:30 in the morning reading through operating agreements or stuck in the car for six hours for a 90 minute meeting or I can't shut my brain off and start dreaming a client could get the $15 million he needs in capital if he grew a money tree in his backyard. Especially when my daughter wakes up in the morning and says "oh thank goodness you're still here" or when I can't remember the last time I talked to Mike other than to confirm he was picking our kid up from daycare, feeding her, and making sure she brushes her teeth. Especially when I'm sitting at the dance studio on my laptop surrounded by stay at home moms in their yoga pants and bright colored running leggings listening to them talk about which MOPS group or language immersion program is the best or how they spent 3 hours at the Verizon store trying to decide which new cell phone to get. Especially when I have to send my girlfriends calendar appointments for play dates. Especially when I know I made this choice - Mike helped me make this choice and has supported me every step of the way.
So what's different than last December? Lily introduced the guilt factor into the playbook last year so you'd think we would have been prepared for anything she pulled out of her hat. We most definitely weren't prepared for how hard she would be on herself or how much anxiety she would have about not being perfect. She is our little worry wart. She is her Uncle B. And I pray that we have the strength to survive her teenage years. She is worried she didn't get enough practice time to learn the songs her new classroom is singing in the Christmas play. She insists we practice them each night before bed. She will tirelessly use the coffee table as her ballet bar and practice her toe points and shuffles or whatever they're called. She will spend hours of concentration on one page in her coloring book to make sure she doesn't go outside the lines. She has an answer and emotion for everything. Mike and I have been discussing how we're failing because we don't know how to fix the anxiety but in fact we're faced with the fear that we're not failing at all. That we're somehow raising this little tiny person who is so compassionate and too smart for us. We've been hit with the reality that we have to make sure we provide challenging opportunities for this little tiny person who went from our little baby to little girl over night.
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