The 1%

"The physical Odyssey of making a baby is really humbling...it's like whoa. When you wake up in the morning and your house is a sort of beautiful mess...but you're with your kids you're thinking, this is the best thing I've ever done with my life." -Drew Barrymore

I almost cried in Walmart today. 
Not because I was having a stressful moment with my children, but because I was having a stressful moment without them. 

Ever since I was young, I knew that when the time came to have children I would give them 100% of my time, my love, my care. Maybe because I was raised by a single mom who worked and went to school full time while trying to date on the weekends. The only thing I can ever remember really wanting as a child was more time with my mom. So, maybe I take it to an extreme when it comes to my own children.  Even still, I have these moments where I realize that anything I once loved doing has slowly been erased from my daily activities. 

As I've said in the past, nap time is a fleeting moment. Sometimes you get tons of things done and sometimes you're visited by a sweet old Jehovah Witness, or some sketchy out of the van salesman and your dogs are freaking out and your hour without the crazy two year old turns into fifteen minutes without the crazy two year old. So you try to find ways to get things done while the kids are awake. I don't mean laundry or dishes or cooking dinner, these are things that will inevitably get done out of necessity. I'm talking about the things you do for your sanity. The things you do for you.

Now doing something for me comes with a risk. I know that I can't write this blog with my toddler because he will destroy the office around me. If I were to tune him out and try to read a book, he would pull everything out of the pantry and try to eat chili flakes or something...this kid is creatively destructive.

Once I tried working out with him and initially he sat there saying, 

"go mommy, go!" 

But by the next day he was laying underneath me saying,

 "don't workout mommy, play with me!" 

So one day I got creative. He wanted to play Avengers so I took a Captain America shield and a Ninja Turtle sword ( yes I know Ninja Turtles aren't Avengers) and he put on his Hulk hands. As we were play fighting I started to do squats, all the while swinging the sword and blocking the punches. Totally looking like an idiot, but who was there to judge? I thought this made the playing even more exciting because I was getting on his level, but about a minute in, he stops mid-Hulk punch and says, 

"Stop working out mommy!" 

Now, my time to work out is basically at night, when I am completely exhausted from the day and during the small amount of time I get to spend relaxing with my husband, which one could argue is equally as important. 

People often ask me when and where I do yoga now. Well, I teach yoga once a week, but yoga used to be my life. I would do it daily and teach 3-4 times a week. Yes I can do some things with the kids, but having my own practice has definitely been placed on the back burner. These are just a couple things I used to enjoy doing, but I could probably write a book on this so I will stop the list and get to the point.

Last night, my husband rented me a chick flick to watch while he went out with some friends. It was Blended with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. Totally chessy, typical happy go lucky family film, but I was in the mood for cheese. In the film the two main characters where agreeing about the fact that your children should always come first. Then Adam Sandler's character said, 

"99% of the time, the other 1% you should keep for yourself." 

I completely agree with this 1%. I want to give my all to my children, but I need to save 1% for me. 

My husband works two jobs every day of the week except for Saturdays and Sundays. Saturdays are usually booked with soccer practice and family stuff so that leaves Sunday for me to have my 1%. I find this to be sort of nerve wrecking because I am torn between the various things I enjoy, knowing my time is limited. 

Do I work out? Do I go to yoga? Do I write my blog or work on my novel? Do I meet up with friends? Do I take a long enough shower to shave my legs? Do I call a babysitter for a much overdue date night with the hubby? Or should I save the sitter for the nights my husband has SWAT training and can't make it home in time for me to go teach my yoga class? etc.

Today, I decided I wanted to make a Christmas wreath. 

I wanted to go to Micheals and buy a bunch of stuff I saw on Pinterest (Damn Pinterest) and attempt to make something pretty. On my way, I remember that I need size five diapers for my two year old so I head to Walmart. Now, my husband works with some amazing people at his CrossFit gym. They had a diaper party for us and we got enough diapers to fill a room. The problem with this is that I have huge babies and my two month old is already in a size two so we've got a few packages of newborn and size one diapers that we no longer need. 

Since I'm not working, I would like to exchange these for larger diapers instead of buying new ones so I had strategically put them in the back of my car a few days before. Doing this was not an easy task as I had all three children with me. I had to keep the toddler from running into the street, while keeping the five year old from picking up the neighborhood cat, all while holding a super heavy car seat with my super chubby baby. The fact that I had gotten the diapers into the vehicle at that time was a relief to me and I would have exchanged them that day had I not first decided to take my brood to CostCo the weekend before Thanksgiving (not the smartest of ideas). 

Back to Wlmart: I open the tailgate and there are no diapers. I remember that my husband had graciously decided to clean out the car the day before so I called him in hopes that they were tucked into some out of sight compartment. I hear two of the three children crying in the background. 

I have to go home, they need me at home, I have to hurry is all I can think. 

He says,

 "The diapers are in the garage." 

I hung up on him. 

Not the most mature thing to do, but it was either that or say something destructive. He had done an awesome thing cleaning out the car, it's not that I was not grateful, but he knew I was planning on exchanging the diapers and it did not occur to him to keep them in the car. My eyes filled up with tears as I stood in the entry way of Walmart trying to decide if I should drive all the way back home or just purchase the diapers since I was already there. 

I decided to enter the store, but it took me a minute to chill out and focus on what I needed. It seems like such a stupid thing to be upset about, but my time these days is so limited and so precious to me and at that moment it felt like it was gone. (I also just had a baby so I think it's fair to say my hormones aren't doing me any favors). I ended up using the money I had planned on getting the wreathe stuff with on diapers and some last minute items for the dinner I was going to cook. My husband would have transferred more money had I asked, but my desire to go to the other store and try to juggle family stuff while attempting to do crafts had gone.

I know that this will pass. I know that I will miss my children relying heavily on me, but in the mean time I still need to work on setting boundaries. I need to work on making sure I get my weekly 1% so that I don't completely lose sight of who I am, besides a mother. I am not exactly sure how, but I think knowing is half the battle! At the moment it feels like my 1% is locking them out of the bathroom so I can go in peace or driving 10 miles under the speed limit to slow my time getting home. These are more like passive aggressive ways of meditation, not exactly taking the time to do something pleasurable. Or is it these small things I take pleasure in now? 

Next time someone asks me what my hobbies are I'm going to say, peeing in private, shaving my legs and driving like a grandma! Ultimately, 

nobody should have to cry in Walmart.