I recently learned of a quote by the author Nora Roberts. She was asked how she balances writing and children and her response was that “the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic and some are made of glass.”
I found this to be so profound, and I think it applies to both stay-at-home-moms and those who work outside the home. Absolutely no one can do it all, and occasionally a ball will get dropped. Sometimes the drop is inadvertent and other times it is intentional. A plastic ball can easily be picked up later without much (if any) lasting damage done. A glass ball could get damaged or even shatter irreparably so it’s much more important to keep from dropping.
Today’s blog post was an intentionally dropped ball. I had plans for what I wanted to write about and hoped to use nap time yesterday to get a good bit of work done on it.
Of course, to use nap time to work, there has to actually BE a nap time.
Even though Vi did nap, LJ never did. I tried all my tricks and after an unsuccessful hour of trying (usually he’ll go down in 5 minutes or less) I finally gave up. This happens every once in a while that he skips a nap and it’s normally not a huge deal; however, yesterday also happened to be Tuesday. Tuesdays are Justin’s long day at work and he is usually gone before the kids wake up and comes home after they’re in bed. So it’s a long day for us normally, and now without a nap time break, the rest of the day seemed endless.
So I had a choice. I could put on the TV and let LJ binge watch quietly so I could work on my blog as planned, or I could forget the blog and do something with him.
It was a pretty obvious choice. This blog is a plastic ball. It’s a passion project and a hobby I greatly enjoy, but I can drop it and pick it back up later without lasting damage. LJ’s childhood is a glass ball though, and if I drop it too many times, I know I’ll regret the damage.
The post was scrapped and we ended up going to Target to get out of the house and break up the afternoon. It felt a little like the stay-at-home-mom version of a field trip: we had a color scavenger hunt, identified numbers on the display clocks, looked at toys, and got a special treat (Paw Patrol graham crackers). The seemingly endless afternoon actually turned into a fun memory with my kids.
Eventually, I’ll write the post I intended for today. I’ll get another chance to post on the blog. But I won’t always have the chance to meander through Target without rushing, letting my two-year-old explore to his heart’s content and watching the world through his eyes.
My kids are young and I’m going to be juggling for a long time, but I hope I can always recognize which balls are plastic and which are glass.
simplify the chaos 