My Reality, Currently

Wow you guys. I had to just stop what I was doing, allow myself to get over it, sit down, and write this post because I feel like I owe it to myself, and to my readers (in case some of you might be feeling the same), to just admit that I'm majorly overwhelmed right now, and that I need to rearrange a few things before I lose it, man. This wasn't the post I had scheduled for today. That post has been pushed back, and this will actually be the last post on the blog this week. Mama needs to take a breather.

Because this blog is a huge (the biggest, really) part of my current job and produces a necessary income for our household, I feel like it's important to be professional and keep a consistent schedule of posting at least four times a week, Monday through Friday, whether the posts are sponsored or otherwise. There are plenty of incredibly successful bloggers who only post once a week, or even much less, but this is just how I do things here. I have a planner where posts are scheduled several weeks in advance, and the posts are usually written 1-2 weeks ahead of time. I am forced to stay organized and keep up, because, as most of you know, in addition to working from home, I take care of my two kids (2 years and 3 months old), and have to schedule my work around their naps and during the days my husband is off the road (for those who don't know, he works for a band and is only home a couple of days a week the majority of the time). Right now we are smack dab in the middle of my husband's busiest work period of the year, so things are especially tight. I have to plan things to a tee, and if something gets thrown off, there really isn't a back up plan.

Last Tuesday, the night my husband left to go back on the road after a couple of days at home, Essley was talking in her sleep and tossing and turning, and I realized something was wrong. She had a fever, and that quickly escalated into a full blown illness of epic proportions. I'll spare you the details, but the rest of the week consisted of both kids being incredibly ill (especially Essley - this was by far the sickest she's been in her life so far). There were two doctor visits, three separate trips to the pharmacy, and more scary coughing spells, projectile vomiting episodes, high temperature readings, and nights spent rocking my babes in the bathroom with a hot shower going than I would have liked. There is nothing worse than seeing your babies suffering. Nothing. Thank the universe my mom drove out here several times to stay the night in case she needed to watch one of them should there be an emergency room visit (combination croup/vomiting in a toddler is pretty intense, and a tiny baby with a fever is no joke). My angel of a mother also helped take care of the kids and with cleaning and laundry and food, which pretty much saved my life during a period of time where I forgot to eat and didn't even sit down unless it was to soothe a child. Everyday I was sure I'd wake up and the kids would finally be better, but it just went on and on. And on. As of today, it's been 8 days and I am finally feeling like, despite lingering coughs, my little ones are finally okay.

Back to my tightly scheduled work week, Sick Kid Fest 2016 threw a major wrench in things, and the second Robbie got home on Sunday I started trying to catch up. I returned the week's emails, did paperwork stuff, and shot a blog post. Monday morning I got up extra early and spent the day attempting to rearrange things in my work schedule, editing, and working on more business email and phone call catch up in between nursing Emmett. I helped put the kids to bed and worked into the night, only breaking to take my first shower in a week (so gross but that's life). Yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat and cough. Yay. I ignored it, because I had to. I  had two posts to finish for next week, and had a big project to shoot (excited to share it in a few weeks) and it took way longer than I'd hoped, so I had to sit down and rearrange some things in my schedule again that I wasn't able to tackle as planned. At this point I realized just how much I had to committed to for the remainder of the month and how few days Robbie was going to be home so I could actually complete them. I erased and rewrote things on my planner pages (yep, I use a good old fashioned pencil and I highly recommend it) so many times that I made a hole in the page for April. I know. Ridiculous right? In between coughing sessions I realized that it's not physically possible to complete everything I have on the list this month and some things are just going to have to go. And that's okay.

I told you guys earlier in the year that I was going to get back to doing more personal posts on the blog. Well, here I am. It's been a long time since I just sat here and wrote like it was my diary, huh? There are real problems in the world and this isn't one of them, or even close. People's kids get sick. People have spouses and partners that work away from home for weeks and months at a time. People have to raise kids on their own, and work full time, without a partner at all. People have to miss work or delay projects. That's life. But I wanted to write this because I think we, as badass women of the world, tend to not allow ourselves a freaking break. And while I don't want to make this one of those "you can do it" posts and give you advice on things for which I'm not qualified to do so, I'm being transparent about my own situation in an effort to give anyone else who is perhaps in a similar place right now a virtual hug and fist bump, as if to say "sometimes things don't work out as planned, and it's never as important as it seems." (No matter how type A you are, Melissa).

So yeah, that's my reality, currently. There won't be any more posts here for the rest of the week while I catch up on work and (fingers crossed) get things back to a manageable place. A couple of our amazing contributors here offered to put together some last minute posts, but I told them no, because I'm officially declaring the rest of the week one for taking deep breaths and catching up on our own lives and work. I'll also be hugging my sweet babies extra hard because they had a way worse week than I did, bless their little hearts.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram already saw the picture in this post, but I figured it was fitting here too. It's grainy and blurry because I took it with my phone while Emmett was in a post marathon nursing session milk coma the other day. It's fascinating how babies know they need to nurse more when they're sick - and boy has this kid been nursing. (That's a whole separate post though.) Anyway, I'm recycling the picture. And that too is okay.

Enjoy the rest of your week, friends. Take a breath. Have a beer. We're all going to be okay.

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