When I finished my degree this June, I knew that life was going to take a different turn all of a sudden. For eighteen months I had been studying and mothering at the same time- what this looked like practically was Phoebe going to nursery three or four mornings a week, whilst I was in lectures and seminars- and the rest of the time spent with her. Simeon was born in the last month or two of my degree, and not much changed- I took him with me. Time they spent sleeping or napping I would do more university work. Phoebe’s first year, however, I had a year out from studying and spent it at home with her. I learnt some lessons during that time, and knew that I would need to be intentional about the way life was lived, being a stay-at-home mum again.
As it happens, I like routine, and knowing that our week has a regular pattern really helps. But on the day to day? I’ve found that functioning without much sleep has usually meant using Phoebe (or Simeon) as my alarm clock, stumbling headfirst into the day with a foggy head. A newborn mentality of needing to sleep and just doing what you can to get by went on longer than it probably should, and affected things. Most days have had anchors of weekly activities- like toddler groups- and the obvious daily routines of meals, naptimes and bedtimes, but I have in the past let the rest of it happen to me.
I am all for having a relaxed attitude, but I quickly found, particularly in that year at home with Phoebe, that I needed to plan a little in order for us to have better days. Letting life happen meant that while weeks and months could fly past, days could be spent with little company other than ourselves, and those things I always meant to do just got put off and off. Having a ‘do it as you see it’ attitude to housework meant that I went around always noticing more jobs and running in lots of different directions. It meant doing the easy thing of browsing the internet, watching the tv, staying in the house, rather than the things I actually wanted to be doing. (I still haven’t got this all sorted, by the way!)
Being intentional has meant a bit of planning, a bit of going out of my way to reach out to others to arrange to do things rather than waiting for people to come to me, making a choice to put in that extra work to get the rewards. Obvious really! In the next few posts I’m going to explore different areas of what being intentional has meant for me lately.
This post is part of my 31 day series, Learning to simplify and live intentionally as part of write 31 days.
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