Guest Blog from Manic Mommy

Stephanie Elliot
Aka Manic Mommy http://www.manicmommy.blogspot.com/


School starts in two weeks. 14 days. I am teeter-tottering on both ends of the spectrum. Anxiously awaiting the start of school, but also not really ready for summer to be over. This is my first year that all three of my kids will FINALLY be in school for full days. Yes, my youngest, my Tukey, will start first grade. I remember when I was in the throes of the diaper warfare, down in the trenches, with interrupted sleep every single night, with teethers and babies waking to feed, and toddlers having night terrors.
I remember thinking, “OK, the year they are all in school together full time, I am going to take THAT year off. Completely off, and just SLEEP. For the whole year because I figured it was going to take a full year of sleeping every single day while they were at school for me to catch up on the missed sleep from those first five years of parenthood.
Do I feel this way now? Maybe. I long for afternoon naps on the couch under my favorite blankie, while the sun streams through our skylight window. I long to turn off the phones, rest my eyes, to lay there uninterrupted for even just a fraction of an hour. To close my eyes and think, “OK, what do I want to do now? What can I do for myself today?”
But I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to go into this self-induced hibernation like I thought I wanted to. Even though I do still kind of want to. Because there’s still so much to do. There’s the grocery shopping, and the laundry, and oh God, do I ever-so-much loathe the laundry! And there’s trips to Target and back-to-school shopping, which I never do till late September, because, hey, come on, I’m frugal, and I’ll do that when all the cool stuff is gone and there’s just crappy stuff left that I can get for really cheap. Because my kids are still pretty young, and maybe they won’t realize that I’ve just bought them the leftover back-to-school crappy stuff?
And well, while I kind of would like to take a year-long hiatus and catch up on the sleeping, I also kind of want to … okay, I can say it here… I kind of want to work. Don’t shoot me. It’s the kind of work I love. This. Writing about how I feel and sharing the thoughts with those who understand what it’s like, or maybe those who have not yet been there, and need to know that there is a light at the end of that really dark and smelly “I-will-die-if-I-have-to-change-another-blowout-diaper-at-four-a.m.” tunnel.
There really is a light.
Because they do stop waking in the middle of the night. And they do stop needing that night-time feeding. And they do stop wearing diapers. And they do grow in all of their teeth and stop teething. And they will start using the toilet and wiping their own butts. And they will start using utensils and napkins and regular cups, and then they’ll start asking for play dates, and they’ll go off to the neighbor’s house and you won’t hear from them for hours and you’ll sit at home and wonder, “Where the heck have my babies gone, and don’t they need me anymore?”They will. And that’s why maybe I don’t need a year off to nap.