p is almost 6 months now which means my maternity leave is about to come to an end and the start of a busy school year. i have two weeks left…which reminds me i really need to take his 5 month photo and we also need to figure out whether we are really going to have a dohl (a korean 1st year party) or not for him and book a venue asap. a lot of different things have been on my mind the last few months but the big one for me has been time and what it means to have time well spent so mainly am blogging tonight to help make sense of it for myself.
i’m finding by the way that not putting my blog post updates on facebook and knowing that very few people actually read this has helped me to just crank out some posts for some self reflection or milestone updates without being terribly careful about grammar or how to best phrase my thoughts. so not the best quality of writing that i’m producing here, but i’m going with for now, better done than not done at all.
so back to time. when i was home on maternity leave with e for 12 months, i really did struggle with how i used my time. i felt from being a teacher who was always on “go go go” for most of the workday and rushing from task to task to the sudden change of being at home for the entire day with a little one who required constant physical care but having such mental downtime was a big shock to me. i constantly struggled with not feeling productive enough or feeling that i was missing out on something important i should have been doing. i made daily task lists for myself and went on domestic overdrive while complaining about not getting enough sleep and feeling tired for most of the day. i equated making the best use of my time to being efficient with my time—making mass quantities of one baby food at a time, making a ridiculous number of breakfast sandwiches and freezing them so i didn’t have to take 10 minutes out of my morning to make myself a meal, and other silly tasks that i took pride in completing.
with baby p and the six months i had for maternity leave, how i best spent my time was something i thought about often. what did it mean to make use of my time well in a way that was glorifying to God and be a good steward of a resource that I suddenly seemingly had more of?
the first few months i really focused on taking things slow. i let my body heal and recover from labor for the first two months and did not leap into life at full speed and i have to say i was really thankful for that time. e was in school for most of the day so once i got used to getting her ready for school and then dropping her off every day with p, i had the full day ahead of me to rest and just focus on taking care of him through the day. i didn’t feel boredom or a desire to fill my day with tasks–i just really enjoyed being at home and the quiet that came along with it. at month 3 once p was allowed in the gym playcare, i loved going to the gym after dropping off e and enjoying a workout while showering in peace without worrying about when p would wake up from his nap. i spent time with other moms and enjoyed deepening friendships and after months of feeling bible reading being a joyless task on my to-do list, actually reading God’s word and meditating on it through the day was becoming richer and i was so thankful for specific areas of growth in my spiritual walk that i had been struggling with for years.
e then got off of school for the summer and that threw me off in my daily schedule. i had to figure out how to entertain a 4 year old who was used to doing so much at school while taking care of a much more alert baby and i found myself easily getting irritated at the non-compliance of a talking child and my patience being much thinner than ever. i used to pride myself in my ability to not let anger get a hold of me with e but it only took one week of summer break for me to sin so much more in this area that i realized that it definitely wasn’t my own strength of patience, but the sheer fewer number of hours i had to spend disciplining my own child through the day that gave me this patience. i fit in summer camps for the rest of the summer break so that e could have some fun in the mornings and then she had a 2 hour quiet time in her room to read or most days it wound up her taking an hour long nap after looking at books or listening to audiobooks. or sometimes we would all go on trips to the zoo or seaworld with friends and i dealt with my 4 year old who became sooo cranky by 2pm from not napping. i got in exercise at the gym and also at home on the peloton and felt like life was starting to balance out again.
but i never really felt like i knew the answer to my original question of how to best utilize my time. i felt like i figured out how to structure my day as a mom of two that worked for us, but i still felt this nagging sense that i was not still making the most of my day. and this time, making the most of my day did not mean having meal prepped for the entire week by sunday night or having 5 kid lunches packed for the week and ready to go. i didn’t crave that intense busy-ness that i did before and also realized that when we were on “go-go-go” mode, it made our entire family pretty unhappy from being too tired.
i started reading a book called off the clock by laura vanderkam and it has been addressing the struggle in my heart for time stewardship. and i have to clarify—i do not in any way at all think that being at home taking care of my children is a waste of time. it is my job when i’m home but it was the sense that i wasn’t making the best use of this time in dealing with my spiritual life, and wasn’t using my time in a way that was of the most service to my family and friends while tending to my own needs. i could have spent four hours at home with e and p, but how much of that time did i spend talking to my four year old versus absentmindedly trying to keep her occupied with an audiobook so that i could prep dinner or do my next task? how much time did i spend scrolling through posts on social media instead of reading a quality book that had been on my to-read list? or getting through a chapter of bible reading so i could check it off as done instead of relishing God’s word and tasting the sweetness of all of its promises? how i often complain about the lack of time for myself i have as a mom when i actually do have time to do things such as read good books, pray or enjoy small pleasures if i structure it into my schedule instead of haphazardly trying to squeeze it in at the end of the day when i have such little energy. i’m only halfway through the book but am definitely getting challenged and convicted of my lack of mindfulness in my time spent. once i finish the book, will blog again about some good takeaway lessons for me. 🙂
PAULYESTHER 