What day is it?
Due to different circumstances coming together - for some moving, for others becoming a toddler - my life seems to have become one long, long day. Every morning when I wake up, I know exactly what's to come. There will be the making of the meal and the cleaning up of the dishes, then some changing of diapers, then some playing with toys, then some removing the child from the phone and the entertainment center, then some distracting with the toys, then some more removing of the child from the phone and the entertainment center. There will be screaming and crying. Then there will be the reading of the books and the napping. - This is the time I will enjoy some freedom which if I'm lucky I will use for having coffee and if I'm not I will use for rejuvenating tasks like cleaning or paying bills. - Then there will be the waking up and some more playing with toys and removing the child from the phone and the entertainment center. Sometimes there are errands to run, which will include crying in the car and crying in the shopping cart, dealing with child getting up in the shopping cart, chasing walking child and some more crying when desired objects happen not to be in the desired position in the child's hand. There will be more meal preparation and removing of the objects involved in consumption of the meal and then there is the last stretch of playing with toys and removing of the child from... you know and then there will be bedtime and some freedom after that and then there is bedtime for me and as I fall asleep I can hear the rewind button resetting my life to repeat the same day again tomorrow.
Oh woe is me. I love my child and I hadn't loved any "real" job (bwahahahaha) I've ever had in my life, but THE MONOTONY of the full-time motherhood. Dear god, the monotony. This is the most challenging unchallenging job you can ever imagine. The lack of challenge is the challenge. It's the ultimate test. Of patience, of endurance, of brain-starvation. When did my life become this long long waiting line? I know it all leads to something but never has the final goal seemed so removed. I feel like I'm making a puzzle, no, actually, a mozaic (at least in a puzzle you have the final picture as a motivator) with tiny, tiny, tiny pieces and every day I place one and the rest of the time is filled with waiting and more waiting. I feel all I do all day is resetting things. I'm the machine that lifts the pins in the bowling alley, over and over. I wash the same clothes, I wash the little dishes that are used too soon again to be put in the dishwasher. I prepare everything so it can be used and dirtied and made into a mess and then I go and re-set it. (I am the master of the metaphors. Admit!)
There are days when I am so bored. I try to dream of what I would do if I could right now and I can't come up with anything. It's like my brain has turned to such mush that it can't sum up the energy to imagine something else. Or - which is more likely - I am just tired and a nap at a scheduled, guaranteed time would eliminate much of this fog.
In case you are worried now that I'm depressed: Wrong. I am not. I am just bored and tired. In case you see this as proof that kids ruin your life: Wrong, but the maintanence of human beings is expensive and the expense is you, the parent. That's just how it is. The stuff they grow on has got to come from somewhere. I should've seen it coming when I spent a month in bed because my just conceived child was feasting on my calories and hormones and whatnot. And here she is, feasting on my time, my freedom and my energy. All I have left is my little pool of self-pity. And coffee and Oprah at naptime.
I just wrote you a note, and zapped it off by mistake. So I'll just say--Get more rest, and get outside and play in the fresh air with your daughter. Housework will always be there!
So there's one way to get rid of this "lack of challenge":
.....
...another child! :)
I've gone through this, and mind-numbing is exactly what it is. I would have done more reading if I was willing enough to trade a nap for reading time, but I was tired mommy--so naps always won out (but they were too infrequent).
I did the whole Oprah thing for a while too, but I would get depressed. No joke. That show is way too emotive for me, but I would catch the lighter episodes during the summer. Ah, but even the episode with Gwyneth Paltrow had me teary-eyed. Ack! I'm a lost cause.
In any case, I found myself nodding while reading your post. I homeschool my children now so my challenges have evolved and thankfully, I'm seldom if ever bored. But that took a long while in coming. :^)
Posts like this are what inspire me to someday (hopefully sooner rather than later) become a mother, without being too idealistic about it. Your writing reminds me that I don't necessarily have to wait for the "perfect" time for anything, that it just has to be the "right" time.