Overwhelmed

I'm not sure why I haven't come back to this little space to write for so long.  I can't believe how long it has been, or how many "post-worthy" moments I've not written about.  I think I've let the must-do posts pile up so much that I'm overwhelmed by the need to get caught up.  My annual birthday posts to the girls, birthday letters to them, Halloween, Thanksgiving, their birthday party, the annual neurologist appointment . . . all these things passed me by that I have always posted about, but I've been drowning in work, and living, and doing, and just didn't post.   But we are still here.  We are good.  We are great even.  The girls couldn't be better.  Sammie is still absolutely thriving at school, and I cry happy tears at least once a week from some story of some way that she's "shared" who she is at school.  Something that wasn't happening last year.  This new place has set the bar high though and I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the "well what now?" that next year entails.  This school only goes up to age 5. . . so we are back to square one for next year except that we've seen the difference between our girl in the "right" environment for her versus the "not right" environment.  Finding this "right" environment again is proving to be no easy task.  On top of all the other usual to-do's I have11 school tours to go on in the next month and a half.  Yeah.  I'm overwhelmed to say the least. 

My work-life balance has pretty much sucked lately -- so all my late-night time that I used to spend blogging or catching up with friends or sleeping has been spent working.  I've managed to keep some semblance of normalcy for the girls; I still come home for dinner/bath/bedtime 95% of the time (I only miss it when I'm on a work trip or have a filing that keeps me in the office, but then we face time "goodnight" and they love it), but even on the nights I make it home, the second the girls are in bed, I start the "third shift" so to speak.  I don't know when the last time I slept a full-night's sleep was.  Most nights I'm so dog-tired that I nap from 9- 10 pm or so after the girls are in bed, and then I get up and work for 3 or 4 more hours before sneaking in another quick nap before the girls wake up at 7.   I look beat up at work most days, and I feel it.  I know this pace isn't sustainable, and I just keep hoping things slow down soon so I can sleep, and blog, and get my hair highlighted, or blow dry it at least for goodness sake, and well, just have free time and don't constantly feel like I'm suffocating by work.  Overwhelmed. 

Not the rosiest of posts, but it is what it is.  

Good news:  I haven't thrown myself out my office window yet, mostly because (1) they don't open, but also because (2) of these two.   They are my heart.   They carry me even on my worst days.   I find myself, daily, thinking about how they are now "2" and "5" and that sends me spinning.  It's almost as if I feel overwhelmed by how quickly they've become little girls and not babies, and how fast this whole life thing seems to go.  Overwhelmed by how much I love them, how much I want for them.   How amazing they are.

I cannot wrap my head around it, and I wish I could slow down time.   I do.  Because it feels like time is moving at warp speed all the time, and I want to savor every moment with them. . . . every giggle, every "mama, hold you" from Mia, every little joke or inquisitive question from Sammie B, every single time one of them wraps their arms around me.  Every single moment (okay, except maybe not Mia's tantrums, because those moments are rocking.my.world. That stuff is uncharted territory for us, and well, I'm not savoring it.). 

My heart. 

I hope that somehow I can convey to them, through both actions and words, that hard work pays off, that I work *this* hard so that I can give them the life I want for them, and that they won't look at me, my job, my work, and grow to resent it all.   I hope.  I hope they won't see the "overwhelmed" nearly as often as I feel it, but that they'll feel the love every time I feel it, which is of course, all the time. 

I hope they will both grow to know that the *best* part of my days, my every day, are the moments I'm with them.   No question.