This stunning photo of me pretty much sums up how I feel on a daily basis lately. Carter sent it to me as a joke after a recent shoot, but after laughing about it initially, I had the idea for this post. I get a lot of questions from you guys about how I manage “do it all” or stay so “on top of everything”, so I think it’s important for me to share what life really looks like as of late.
As we all know by now, social media often paints a much prettier, glossier image of what life looks like and I want to make sure that anyone reading this knows that even though I, like most bloggers I know, try to make life look pulled together and colorful at all times, IRL I often feel like I’m just treading water to stay afloat.
Physically I feel great, but mentally I’m all over the place!
It all came to a head last week when Anel and I were watching our nightly episode of The Wire. Side bar: We’ve been working through it for a few months now and just started season four. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend! It takes about five episodes to get into it but then you’ll be hooked.
I digress, back to the story…
So we’re watching Detective James McNulty do his thing, and as the episode is ending (mind you it’s a full 50 minutes), I looked at Anel and said, “Wait, where is the dog?” At that moment I realized, in a state of sheer panic, that I had left him outside for the entire time and it was a really really cold night. I jumped up, opened the door, and he ran in faster than a speeding bullet.
If you’re a pet owner, you can fully understand how much I freaked out over the next few minutes. Finally I calmed down enough to sit down with him and check him out. He was shaking pretty hard and I was sure in the moment that he had hypothermia (he didn’t) so I frantically Googled what to do while hysterically crying (obviously). Meanwhile, his demeanor seemed fine, and he was focused mostly on all the treats and extra attention I was giving him, despite his shivers.
I wrapped him up in a bunch of blankets and laid with him on his bed so that my body heat would warm him up. Within 20 minutes he was back to normal, shiver free, and just so happy for the extra snuggles with his mama. The next morning he was ready to play at 7am like he is every day. #puppyatheart
But that incident shook me hard…. Because it wasn’t the first time I had forgotten something big lately.
That night I couldn’t sleep, feeling like the worst dog mom, human mom, and wife in the world. It was the night one of Amalia’s epic first cold (more on that tomorrow), and I was so out of it from worrying about her and finishing a project for work all day that I had no more brainpower.
There’s something about being responsible for a tiny human being’s life that can really take it out of you in a way that I’ve never experienced before.
That mixed with the plain old logistics of figuring out how to take care of her, run my blog, work on Anel’s business, and also get dinner on the table each night has turned me into one of those people that me pretty much forgets anything that I haven’t written down (they call it mom brain for a reason). I’ve showed up to appointments on the wrong day (more than once), missed calls I was supposed to be on, and completely spaced on a friend for dinner the other night. Luckily in the last few weeks I’ve figured out a system, using this daily planner, that keeps me on track most of the time.
I’m not the first parent to be losing her marbles, and I’m certainly not the last, but I wanted to share my story so that if you’re going through the same thing (kids or no kids), you know you’re not alone!
At the end of the day, all of the anxiety and hardship of being a mother are far far far outweighed by the joy it brings me. Amalia is and always will be my little angel, and as long as my other baby, Boots, doesn’t get forgotten about outside again, I know we’ll all be ok.
Where’s the bag from?
From Crab & Cleek!
Love seeing a more human side of you, but I also love the inspiring posts about how to try to keep it together. But your average girl is stuck between the perfect social media icons and bloggers and hot mess reality tv stars with no real inspiration to keep it together but not beat ourselves up when we don’t. I’m actually doing a blog post about this later this week!
http://www.holycitylife.com
Perfectly said!!!
I can totally relate to this. Try not to beat yourself up about boots. We’ve all been there! Mom brain is a real thing!
Thanks Gina 🙂
On my first day home alone with a five-week-old, I really, really, really needed to read this. I have been trying to figure out how I’m going to get everything done, but also trying to not put too much pressure on myself. Thanks for keeping it real!
Oh that first day home alone is so scary. Hang in there mama!
I feel like I’m losing my marbles constantly and I don’t even have a child!!! 🙂 (Also I constantly worry that I accidentally let Tyrion out while taking out my trash and recycling)! Love you friend! xo
Hahah poor Tyrion. He wouldn’t survive Brooklyn on his own! Glad I’m not alone in this though…
When my second was a baby, I was convinced I’d forget him in the car on a hot summer day. I always brought him in the house first, knowing that while I could forget about a sleeping infant in the backseat, I’d never forget my noisy two year old. Obviously I never forgot and we made it through the summer just fine, but every time you see those terrible stories of kids being left in the car, I feel so much sympathy for their poor parents because I 100% can imagine how easy it is for that to happen!
What a scary thought!!! I’m so sorry that’s awful.
I can identify with this – big time. We have two kids under 4, both my husband and I work full time, and we have two dogs (one senior and one a puppy so they both have their issues). I forget at LEAST one thing a day, despite the constantly running lists in paper, on my phone, sometimes written on my hand. One thing that helped us TREMENDOUSLY is we just bit the bullet and decided to shell out some money for awhile to make our lives easier – we pulled a set chunk out of savings for this purpose only. once we were on stable ground, we could see what we needed to continue paying for and what we could cut back out of the budget. For example, we hired a professional organizer and did all of the major living spaces in our house which made daily life infinitely less chaotic, we upped our cleaning lady to every week and paid her to also do laundry, and we put in place paid childcare from 5-7 pm in addition to our coverage of 7:45 am – 5:00 pm (another working mom and I shared an aftercare sitter) and started meal delivery for 3 dinners a week. It really only took about 3 weeks to catch up and be back to a completely clean house, everyone sleeping, mom and dad having time to exercise etc. and we were able to pull back just about every expense we temporarily added on. So worth it. I don’t feel like I am falling behind a little bit every day and slowly going crazy anymore (well, yet, it has only been about 6 months).
Those first few months of new motherhood I was a disaster & was such a mess at work. It’s just really, really hard when they’re babies but it does get so much easier or you get used to balancing a bit more.
My mom always likes to tell me about her friend who loaded the two kids up, drove to the grocery store, had a stressful shopping experience, and drove all the way home with crying kids to realize…. she had left every single grocery bag in the cart at the store. So yeah. Mom life!
Ugh I have definitely forgotten the (very small) dog outside several times after my baby was born in August! Luckily when it was much warmer out. One day he was taking waaaay too long to do his business, so I left him to go multitask and forgot him. A while later, when the baby and I were in the living room, he showed up at the front door! He snuck through the back yard gate and wandered around the house to come in the front. He was all smiles like, hi mom – I’d like to come back in now, but I felt horrible!
It’s hard to balance everything, and we all make mistakes. You’re human, and you have a lot on your plate. Fortunately, Boots was okay and he definitely forgot about it and forgave you as soon as the snuggles started.
xx
Sam
xoxoxo I hope so
Sending you some love and solidarity! <3
Thank you Caitlin! xo
I totally feel you girl! Even though I’m not a mom, when I get really busy or a lot of life things are happening all at once, I forget conversations I’ve had or things I do… Thank you for being honest and real, like you’ve always been. It’s much appreciated. We come to your blog for an escape, but it’s sometimes good to know you’re struggling just as hard. xx Shannon
Mom brain is very real, and hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it stays around for a long time! My son just turned 3, and I’m still walking from one room into another completely forgetting what I needed in the short trip:) Just have faith that very rarely do serious terrible events happen because of it, especially when you have a great support system like you do. Learn to laugh at yourself, learn from the crazier moments, and you’ll be just fine. I tell myself “Women have been doing ALLLLL of this for years, and surviving and thriving. I can do it too!” You’re doing great!