Tag: First

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The first week back….

Oh my WORD!! Let me tell you, we are all still trying to recover from the first week back in routine and on top of it all, a new school with new times and everything new in terms of routine.

You name it, it is new for us…..books must be covered and that is literally happening between 3 and 4 in the morning (ok maybe rather between 4 and 5 in the morning) because there is no other time to do this. I feel like a sleep walker. I become MOMSTER.

My husband asks me what is wrong, I probably looked at him with this expression on my face. You know, the one that says That is a stupid question dude! I have been up since 4 in the morning! I don’t think I really answered him, except saying that I am TIRED. But we survived.

How, I do not know, but we did. We were not late for school, got everything done that the school had asked us to do and I could manage to attend my exercise class on Wednesday afternoon. You are probably wondering why it is so heavy for us to get back into routine? Previously we could drop our kids a bit later in the mornings, but now we have to drop them half an hour earlier, which means that everything we do must move up by a half an hour or even more…..it is a lot and a huge adjustment….and where we live it means we must travel more and further than people that live in town…

With this uncertainty inside me, I wonder HOW I am going to manage everything this year, especially this month and February. Normally there is not enough time to get everything done, now even more so. On top of it all we have to attend some school activities, fitting it in between everything else….

I hyperventilate when no one is watching, because I must keep my pose. I still want to panic and run like the gif of Sponge Bob and Patrick, running and screaming like a crazy person. How do people do it?? How do other moms get it right??

How do people that work from 8 to 5 full time, without domestic workers do it? How do you stay sane AND get time for yourself AND all the other admin in and around the house? Do they sleep less? I wonder by myself. It always feels as if there are things that have to be sorted out, when are we supposed to do that?

Maybe their speed is faster than mine? Maybe I am a sloth and just so very sloooooow? That is how I feel. Is it because I am becoming older? Or is this the repercussions from the Pandemic? All these questions wash through my mind, coming in like waves, breaking, pulling back, becoming calm only for the next round of waves of questions to roll in.

Yesterday morning I have a chat with my husband. He recons we must just roll with the punches and take it one day at a time. I am stressing unnecessarily according to him. I look at him, again with a weird expression on my face, and think to myself HOW? My personality does not allow for rolling with the punches and one day at a time. I get frustrated if my day’s plan do not work out as it should have.

When one of the institutions we work with, have an issue on their website, not working, hanging and you struggle for hours to get a simple task done, then I get frustrated. It messes with my plans. Because that unplanned time spent on something out of my control, has to be caught up somewhere by ME. And the only place where I can catch up is to reduce sleep time. Less sleep. Because everything has DEAD LINES. So to let something stand over to the next day does not really help much, because then I am behind with tomorrow’s planning already….

The waves of questions and plans of what, where and how roll through my mind. HOW am I going to do it? WHERE am I going to get the time? WHAT am I going to do if my planning does not work out? SHOULD I still plan? Because if I plan it does not work out, if I don’t plan it does not work out. Do you know how frustrating that is for a Boxwood tree personality? Everything must be on their place ALWAYS.

This morning when I got up, I was humming a song I heard on Spotify once….I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength….Mmmmm….this makes me think. One of my favorite verses. I can do anything through Christ who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13. I CAN do this. God is going to help me! It is not necessary to hyperventilate or to panic & run like Sponge Bob and Patrick.

We do not HAVE to try to do everything ALONE. We must just ask God to help us, hold us in His hand, giving us the necessary strength and energy….Hands of mercy won’t you cover me? I feel the song’s words washing over my mind like a Tsunami, removing the smaller waves of doubt and questions. Suddenly it is wiped out with God’s peace. I can do everything through Him that gives me strength. Not on my own, ever.

Die eerste week terug….
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The first photo of 2022

“Up the T-U-B-E!!!!” comes the voice over our soundbar in our lounge. We are all watching TV to pass the time and reach midnight. My tribe and I. We are watching Henry Danger with the kids. We have already watched a movie earlier the evening.

Normally we sleep through the countdown and celebrations. But my son Franco started with this stay-awake-until-midnight thing a few years back…..neither my husband nor myself have the energy, but we do it for the kids. You know, the memories that we are busy making.

We do channel hopping searching for a countdown timer. We find one on one of the news channels, just in time. About 2 minutes before midnight. We watch in silence as the numbers count down and reduce. At 10 we all start counting with the timer 10-9-8-7….. and we count down and end with Happy New Year!

The moment that I utter those words, this emotional thing builds up inside me and a tear or two comes through that I cannot swallow down. Another year. It feels as if the reset button has been pushed and everything starts all over again. The head start that I thought I had by sorting out the kids’ school clothes and stationery seems meaningless and silly in that moment.

I pull myself together and decide to stop the negativity. We start every year a bit blue. This year HAS to be different. I look over to my husband and see he could not keep the tears down. He is emotional after wishing the kids a happy new year. My daughter Sioné hangs around my neck, kissing me over and over, as if the last time she did this was in the previous year (in Afrikaans we always joke and say laas jaar laas on the first of January but it is not as catchy in English).

I wish Franco a Happy New year and then my husband Heinrich. Then Sioné picks Fudge up and we all wish the house dog (our third child) a Happy New Year. She looks at us and for a moment there she seems a bit grumpy. We are waking her up from her nap that she was having. Suddenly I remember that I wanted to make a screenshot of the time on my phone and between everything that is happening I manage to get this right – I do this to remember later and to post on social media.

I call out spontaneously “Let us take a first photo for 2022!” Everyone falls down on the couch, Fudge too, whether she wants to or not, she is now a part of this photo. We struggle to get the angle right so that we all do not appear fatter than what we already are after all the junk we have eaten this holiday.

Then I miss the button to take the picture and it takes longer than what a selfie is supposed to take. Eventually we get it right, take a few versions to make sure everyone’s eyes are open. Nobody looks fresh anymore, we are all tired, but we smile nicely for the camera.

Then we all rush to get into bed. We are exhausted. A lack of more phrases about how tired we are cannot describe the exhaustion we are feeling at this time (I have a few in Afrikaans and again they are not as catchy in English when you translate them). We worked on the day before New Year. I felt like a champion because eventually I finished my 5 hours tax training that I needed for 2021. And I did work and we marked and packed the school stationery.

That makes me feel as if I achieved this thing called balance right at the end of 2021. Sort of. I managed to keep my child happy (after we had to talk long and hard with her first about WHY Mommy cannot do everything NOW as she demands), I finished my training, did some work (not everything that I wanted but did the bare necessities), fed everyone, cleaned the house.

Now that we can sleep, I do not feel tired anymore. As I lie in bed typing, I hear the rain falling down again (after a nice shower earlier this evening and late afternoon). Sometimes the rain comes down hard and then it changes to a softer rainfall. It is as if the rain drops are having a race to see which one will reach the ground first. At times the downpour sounds like a tap or hosepipe is opened over our roof.

When I listen to the rain outside, I wonder what 2022 has in store for us. I just know it will be a year of super natural abundance on all levels. It is as if God is blessing the new year with His rain.

And rather than taking a last photo of 2021, as my Facebook memories report I do every year, we take a first photo of 2022. Tired eyes and all. 2022 we are ready! With God on our side, it can only be good.

Later this morning I decide to finish my entry after going to sleep (I lost the battle to sleep and was tired after all), I go to my Bible App on my phone as I do every morning first thing.

The scripture for today? Isaiah 43:18-19 “Do not remember the former things, Or ponder the things of the past. Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert.

It is as if God is just confirming to me, with this scripture, that the first photo of 2022 that we took shortly after midnight, was the right thing to do.

Die eerste foto van 2022