Change

We had an excellent weekend. It wasn’t because we went on vacation or did anything extraordinary. We managed to have a perfect amount of plans and a surprisingly great amount of unstructured downtime. Sunday the blues started though. Today I woke up utterly exhausted and feeling unready to conquer the week.

Then I remembered what Mondays used to be like, especially after an extended period of time home with my kids. Mondays used to be a time of severe depression and angst. Really both parties would suffer going back to school and work. The kids would have a hard time separating and I would have the heart break over waiting five days before having the chance to spend the concentrated time with them again.

It’s funny how perspective can change so quickly. Although I love the time I spend with them, the hustle of the week can be rough. The rush out of the house Monday through Friday to get to school can get ugly. The shuffling from activity to activity while trying to balance what ever other child is not involved in the given activity can be exhausting. And clearly doing all this while very pregnant is tough. When I think of the alternative though, there’s no doubt in my mind that feeling depressed at the start of the week is completely unnecessary.

There’s also the nostalgic feeling of how great our weekend was as a family four this past weekend. At this point, I want the baby out. I’m ready to tackle this challenge head on. I can’t help but feel sad for the loss of this four person family. I can’t help but feel that our dynamic is so good and a little scared of what this change will mean for all of us.

In some ways, Gabby will forced to give up her innocence. She will no longer be the baby of the family or be able to cling to her mommy as she has her whole life. And even though Drew has gone through this life altering experience before, I’m not sure it has given him any skills to better adapt to less attention. Change has never been a strong suit for him.

With five weeks left in what feels like a never ending pregnancy, we are in the home stretch. The feeling of gratitude over staying home with my children may be over shadowed by my stress of balancing it all. The happiness and ease of us all being together without specific plans may not be as good as this weekend for a great deal of time. And perhaps Drew isn’t the only one who has a hard time with change.