Survival

Let me paint a picture for you:

Imagine Scott stretched out on the couch, arm draped over his eyes, as if any more light will make his head explode.  I'm folded up in the recliner in a most non-chiropractic-friendly position, trying to keep my eyes open.  The baby is asleep.


It's 8 pm.


We are totally wiped out.  At 8 pm.  The house is a wreck all around us.  Baby gear and burp cloths on the floor.  Dishes strewn about the kitchen.  Piled up mail and miscellaneous papers cover the dining room table.  Laundry baskets, ours and the kid's, are overflowing.  The bathroom is so dirty...well...let's not discuss that.  

Last week Scott and I started back to work.  We've been off together all summer.  Maternity leave for me.  School teacher summer off for Scott.  Break is over.  Back to work!

I told Scott I feel like we're free-falling right now.  Grasping at air around us, trying to stop the fall.  He said it doesn't feel like free-falling to him.  More like survival mode.  Side note:  I'm a cat lover.  My analogies relate to cats.  How I feel right now is like one of those time-lapse photography thingy-boppers that show a cat falling and twisting in mid air, ultimately landing on their feet.  Except I haven't landed on my feet yet.  Scott is an Eagle Scout.  His analogies relate to his boy scout experiences growing up.  It makes sense to me that he feels like we're in survival mode.

When you're surviving, only the very top priority items get attention.

Food, for example.  We are all eating.  Well, most of us are eating. The problem is that one of my cats, Otto, gets canned food on a daily basis.  Long story shortened into one run-on sentence:  He has health issues and is losing weight and to try to stop that downward trend, we started canned food, which he loves more than dry food.  Poor Otto.  He either gets his canned food zero times a day or several times a day.  Who knows.  Scott and I are doing well to keep ourselves and the baby fed.  We can't keep track of whether we fed Otto or not.  So it's possible we BOTH fed him.  Or neither of us did.  Again, poor Otto.

Employment is important.  Well, most of us are working.  Money being the necessity it is, Scott and I have been going to work.  James isn't working yet.  Neither are the cats.  Lazy freeloaders...

Personal hygiene.  Well, most of us are bathing.  I'm pretty sure Scott and I are still showering on a regular basis.  (Well I KNOW I am, just can't speak Scott.)  Poor James is getting left out of this one.  For a little while I was doing nightly baths.  Counter-top baths, not in a bath tub, for reasons explained here.  But now, it's been a few (several?) nights with no bath-ing going on for James.  I've been too tired at night!  And he doesn't smell too bad.  Yet.

Some things that have not been making the priority list:  Sleep.  Cleanliness of the home.  Grocery shopping.  Details, details.

I know we'll find our groove soon.  This is very much a phase, not a destination.  We started out the summer learning to do life with a newborn.  Now we're learning to do work + life + a newborn.  It is very doable.  It just takes some adjusting!

Today when I was driving around doing errands, I noticed at one particular stoplight that after I went through the intersection, none of the people behind me followed suit.  Either they were all waiting to turn left like I was and oncoming traffic would not permit them to do so, or (more likely) I ran a red light.  Immediately after turning I could not for the life of me remember if the light was red or green.  I'm not an intentional red-light-runner.  But today, due to a little case of distractedness, I may have run one.