sweat, milk and slowing down

i frantically run around the apartment, crying baby in one hand, a pile of laundry in the other.

"hadley, put your clogs by the front door! 1-2-3... hadley do you want to see friends today? you need to help mama clean up!" i try my best to stay calm and sweet. but really i'm not trying that hard.

the kitchen is a mess, the bathroom disgusting, we have overflowing laundry baskets which means i have absolutely no clean nursing bras and it has been two days since i last showered.


yet i've somehow managed to scoop up the girls three days in a row to get out of the apartment and meet up with people or make appointments.

i smell of sweat and old breastmilk, my mascara is crusty, my roots are greasy and i am living on granola bars and cup after cup of reheated coffee.

i dig to the bottom of a drawer to find a clean shirt, throw on my maternity pants (which keep falling off every time i get up to walk but hey i don't fit into my normal jeans yet!) and slather on some deodorant.

quickly i get hadley dressed and set amelia in the moses basket. please stop crying, i ask her and pray simultaneously. i look over and hadley has granola bar all over her face.

ok, it's ok, who are you trying to impress? i ask myself. and honestly i'm not too sure. myself maybe? proving that i have achieved some sense of normalcy again? that i can do this? that i can indeed handle two kids?

i light a candle. and then another. then i blow the second out. overkill.

ok, maybe i'm trying to impress more than myself here. this is just a fellow mama, going out of her way to bring me a meal. me, who just had a baby two and a half weeks ago. and i am running around like a maniac through all the rooms trying to clean up the evidence. nope! no new mom here, it seems i'm trying to allude.

but that's the truth. i just had a baby. i've been running on adrenaline because i get too stir crazy sitting around the house all day. i'm not a homebody. that's just not who i am. i need to get out and be in nature, be with crowds of people. that's what brings me life. what energizes me.

so to sit around in this mess for a week now that david has gone back to work, it's kind of driving me insane... which is why i haven't just sat. i've forced myself and the girls out.

being busy helps. it distracts me from the mess at home, from the fact that i am exhausted and from letting myself slip back into depression.

BUT

being busy makes time fly. as if it didn't already go fast enough.

i call my mom to see how her job interviews are going. i tell her we have company coming and i am essentially that chicken running around with its head cut off.

"she's a mom. she understands...she gets it. all of your cleaning can wait."

all of this--my pride, this proving myself or whatever the heck it is--i finally realize has been getting in my way of soaking it up. soaking up these first few weeks with two. slowing down and truly, truly enjoying them.

these moments will not last. hadley's first few years flew by faster than a blink. and i know amelia's will as well. so starting now, i'm giving myself permission--giving you permission, if you're a new mama, especially of multiples--to let the dishes pile up, let the laundry overflow, order pizza, let people come help if they're offering. because life already moves too fast to hurry it on faster.

it doesn't mean you can't handle it. because if i have learned anything in the last few weeks it's that i really can handle it. i can do it and it made me feel like superwoman.

but, that isn't the point. give yourself the grace to soak it up. enjoy the slowness, the laying around and the mess before it's--all too soon--gone.