It\u2019s just shy of 5:30, and I\u2019m exhausted. A month-long string of teething, sickness and travel has left my one-year-old son having forgotten how to sleep through the night. Again.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m tired of not sleeping. I\u2019m tired that being my excuse for why I can\u2019t seem to make forward progress in my writing or fitness goals. So this year, I\u2019m thinking about resolutions.<\/p>\n
My son is an utter delight; he seems lit from within. But adjusting to being a family of five hasn\u2019t been easy. With this child, the dynamics have shifted. I have trouble determining the best use of my time. In found pockets of time, I dither between: shower or laundry, clean the toilet or cook dinner, rest or work out, sit with my child or busy myself, run an errand or savor the quiet at home. Often I find myself at 6:00 PM, somewhat miraculously, with dinner ready, homework done and \u2014 if I\u2019m lucky \u2014 the living room floor picked up, but feeling like that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
When this happens, I remind myself — I fed five people three wholesome meals that day<\/i>. As a result, I\u2019ve usually swept the kitchen floor twice. I\u2019ve probably read stories and sung songs and folded tiny clothing and signed reading logs and gotten two children where they need to be while toting a third along, and wiped counters and spoken to friends. I\u2019ve probably done many small, good things. This is fine, because that\u2019s what my life is right now \u2014 a collection of small, good things. I don\u2019t necessarily yearn for bigger things most days. I just want to know I\u2019m choosing the best of the choices I\u2019m given so I might be at peace when I see all that didn\u2019t get done.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m starting before I feel ready, before I\u2019m rested, before I know the greater purpose. This year I\u2019m working on mustering courage to choose the important over the urgent.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why I can get up today, after a night of interrupted sleep, and brew coffee and sit in my living room and write in the quiet, even though piles of clothes litter the floor in front of me, waiting to be donated. I will get to them.<\/p>\n
I resolve not to let the undone define or undo me.<\/i><\/p>\n
Tonight, if I\u2019m doing it right, this will look like going to swim laps once the kids are down, even though it\u2019s cold out and the couch calls to me. It might look like building Legos with my daughter amid a playroom upended. It might look like abandoning the vegetables I\u2019m chopping to kiss my husband when he walks in the door. It might look like leaving a sink full of dirty dishes to go have coffee with a struggling friend (or letting a friend in for coffee when I have a sink full of dirty dishes, and I am the one who is struggling). As I face weaning the first baby I have successfully nursed to his first birthday, it might mean sitting in his room with him at my breast longer than I really need to, even as other tasks go unfinished<\/p>\n
There will be countless times I feel like I\u2019ve failed. There will always<\/i> be something else I could be doing that might be more \u201cproductive.\u201d But this is my stake in the ground. Even though I don\u2019t know whether it will matter, and I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll stick with it. Even though I\u2019m not sure if anything will come of it. This feels important to me, and I\u2019m doing it.<\/p>\n
I hope you\u2019ll join me; be brave and try that thing you\u2019ve been meaning to, or make that change you\u2019ve been putting off. Even if it feels too big or too small. Even if you\u2019ve already failed a hundred times. Even if you\u2019re afraid you\u2019ll fail again. Even if no one will ever notice. Especially if countless other tasks call to you instead. Let\u2019s choose to not to let the undone undo us.<\/p>\n
Christina Caro\u2019s writing also appears on <\/i>Grace for Moms<\/i><\/a> and <\/i>on her blog<\/i>Smarter Ardor<\/a>. She attends a MOPS group in Virginia Beach, where she lives with her husband, Daniel, and their two daughters, ages 7 and 5, and their one-year-old son.<\/i><\/p>\n It\u2019s just shy of 5:30, and I\u2019m exhausted. A month-long string of teething, sickness and travel has left my one-year-old son having forgotten how to sleep through the night. Again. I\u2019m tired of not sleeping. I\u2019m tired that being my excuse for why I can\u2019t seem to make forward progress in my writing or fitness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":2446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,42,102,117],"tags":[214,215,212,219,157,191,198,220,164,187],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-lifestyle","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-be-you","tag-bravely","tag-courage","tag-courage-to-be","tag-learning","tag-letting-go","tag-life","tag-me-time","tag-self","tag-transparency"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}