Seasonal Blahs?

I’ve been…out of sorts lately. Just kind of blah. Is it the weather? Probably not, because we’ve had unseasonably warm weather around here, with lovely, if diluted sunshine.

Maybe it’s the inevitable letdown that comes after the holidays are over and we’re facing three months of five day work weeks and the monotony that comes with that.

The sleep thing is actually better. Alyssa flipping loves her room and her bed and being all grown up and independent. I love that she loves it.

Olivia still comes from her room to mine around midnight each night, asking me softly if I can take off her gross Pull Up and put a clean on one her.

I stumble around looking for a dry one to put on her and then pull her into my bed, loathe to take her down the hall and attempt to get her back to sleep in her own bed only to have to walk back to my own an hour later, after having fallen asleep in her bed with her. I know. But I’ve said before that I’m lazy. I want the easiest solution that will bring me the most rest, especially at midnight, a mere six hours before I have to get up and start the day all over again.

Exercise would probably help but I hate exercise. I realize that if I found something I actually enjoy, it wouldn’t feel so much like work but…that hasn’t happened in the last 41 years (okay, 20 years, let’s just count my adult years rather than my childhood, during which playing on the tire swing didn’t feel like work.)

The thing is, I want to want to exercise. I want to find something I enjoy, something that doesn’t feel like I’m being punished for being fat. I know that’s so stupid, to feel like exercise is punishment but it does.

On the bright side (and a totally different subject) I’ve been enjoying taking part in my resolution to read to Olivia more. We’re ten days in to this new year and we’ve read three books a night on seven of the previous nine days. I’m calling that a good start to the new year. She loves it. She’s come to know that when 7pm rolls around, it’s time to find pajamas, brush our teeth and settle in to read. This girl does so appreciate a routine.

So success there makes me happy. It’s also benefitting Alyssa because at 7pm each evening, we turn off the television and read. She can either sit with me and O and listen to the books I’m reading or she can sit and read her own books. It’s been about half and half so far. I love that she loves to read too.

But the schedule, sometimes, feels overwhelming, like there is just one more thing to be done before the day is over. I hope that doesn’t come through when we do sit down to read because I do enjoy it. I love sitting there with her either beside me or on my lap, reading and talking about the story and seeing her delight when something unexpected happens in the book.

This morning while in the shower, I listened to the girls bicker in the tub. And in my head, I knew I was in a horrible mood. I knew I had no reason to be in such a bad mood and I thought to myself, “Do not take your mood out on those girls.”

And then? I growled at them, “If you two can’t get along, just get out of the tub now!”

See, I don’t even listen to the mild-mannered voice in my head. Logically, I know the mood won’t last and yet, I headed downstairs with a scowl on my face and went about packing A’s lunch without talking much. I hate that I get that way. I hate that my entire family is waiting to see how Mom is going to react to something, as if they’re waiting for me to either get over my stupid self or to blow up and lose my mind once and for all.

They deserve better. No. Wait. They deserve a better me. They deserve me at my best, whatever that is.

This day has gotten better. I almost ended this post with a little tale about why Olivia missed school today but that was such a 180 degree turn around from the way this post started that it felt forced. That one, the funny story, will have to wait until tomorrow, when I hope the mood is good from the start.