Life Lately – 8 Months Back in California

I sat down to type this six-month update and realized it has, in fact, been eight months since we moved back to Orange County. It means we have been back as long as we lived in Utah. That feels simultenously impossible and validating. So much of the last year and a half has been spent packing and unpacking, getting settled, and figuring out new routines and where to put everything. There are lots of new – new grocery stores, new gyms, new schools, new closets, new church congregations, new beaches. There’s some old – old friends, old playgrounds, old favorite restaurants.

We had a small stint there with homeschooling.

We have successfully unpacked every box except Ben’s old grad school notes.

I haven’t ordered outdoor furniture yet but I did get upholstered dining end chairs (those green stripes – I’m obsessed).

The kids and I started a French audio course, and it’s humbling that they can already pronounce things better than I can.

Motherhood these days has changed so much.

In some ways, it is impossibly difficult, being needed in so many different ways by children in different stages. One is up at 6:30 and hoping to play. Another wants to connect in the afternoons during the toddlers’ nap. One is really only talkative after all siblings have gone to bed (which seems to be getting later and later as the months go on). How can I clone myself?

In some ways, it is impossibly sweet, the fleetingness of these moments together. I can see it now, what those mothers meant when they told me it goes by so quickly. I want to snuggle into the big white couch with all the kids and read stories for two months straight, or two years. I want to live a full week of Saturdays altogether at the beach together, the kids asking to play with us as often as they can.

I also hide in my room under the pretense of showering (the only excuse they will take for being alone – the bathroom doesn’t seem to cut it anymore). I want to scream at them for waking up their sister, for the bits of paper everywhere, and the wet swimsuits on the floor. But I can already see how I’ll miss it.

I’ve noticed I am much closer to the best version of myself when I’ve slept 8-9 hours, when my house is clean, and when there are yummy leftovers in the fridge. This seems to be a season of settling for “good enough” in each area of life and never completing anything fully.

I read recently that the magic of a kid’s childhood is proportional to the magic a woman finds in motherhood. And so we’re trying to be more organized this season. We’re trying to eat more whole foods. But we’re also just really trying to enjoy our kids, to find the magic in today. And to finish hanging all the paintings.