Things have been so busy. Once I finally got the kids in school, things didn't slow down. We just added homework into the mix, you know? And a rigid daily schedule to follow. We've had house organizing to do, new furniture and toys to assemble, and the daily busyness of laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning, which is typically enough to keep me busy all on its own. We got a small breather for our (second) Spring Break, but even that wasn't laid back and relaxing. We ended up discovering that -- ack!! -- the big kids all had lice. I don't know how we escaped any lice infestations for as long as we did, but there were were, on Spring Break, away from family, Jesse still at work, me still dealing with an infant, and now lice chewing on four of my kids' heads. Ugh. I jumped into internet research for how to deal with it, both looking at websites and asking for help on Facebook. I was overwhelmed with information. In the end, I think I might have gone slightly overboard in how zealous I was with laundry, but at the time I felt like I needed to be extremely thorough in order to make sure I wasn't simply repeating everything in a couple weeks. I was overwhelmed with the need to do - RIGHT NOW - all the kids' bedding laundry, as well as washing anything fabric in the front room (I've accumulated quite a few decorative pillows), treating all of their hair, and coming through for nits. 7pm rolled around, Jesse got home, and I hadn't even had a chance to even think about dinner. I was an exhausted mess. Overwhelmed.
But then I became overwhelmed in a different way, as help started rolling in. Jesse stepped up to pitch in every way he could. A new friend from church emailed to ask if she could do anything to help, and I happily gave her all my front room laundry, which she returned the next morning (after doing laundry all day, it was so nice not to have that much more to do!). Another new friend randomly dropped by with dinner in her hands. Another left a plate of homemade chocolate mint cookies on our doorstep. I got a call from the Relief Society president the next day to check on me and see how I was doing. All these people? I've known them barely long enough to remember their names. And yet they're going out of their way to help me, to ease the burden a little bit. I can't even explain how overwhelmed I was with gratitude, and how overwhelmed I felt by their example of loving kindness. It is a hard thing to move to a new place, away from your family and support system, but I tell you, all the little bits of service and kind words have added up to making me feel so welcome and loved and taken care of. Like the chaos can come, but there are people who won't let me drown in it. I sincerely can't wait to get to know them better, and take a lesson from their examples and try to reciprocate the kindness.
The good news is that we have recovered from the lice, and we've had some time to do fun things, like go to the beach down at Santa Cruz, attend some park days, check out the library. Things slowed down enough now that I occasionally get a day at home where I suddenly realize there's nothing I absolutely have to do, and I can just sit and relax with Malcolm and Charlie while the older kids are at school for a few hours. Of course, it's usually not that simple - Malcolm is 2 1/2, after all, and Charlie is learning to get really insistent when I'm not immediately responsive, and I still have to do the laundry sometime, of course - but there's room to breathe.
And last night I was laying in bed and I realized, oh my goodness, the last 3 months have gone So. Insanely. Fast. I cannot think of another 3-month period in my life that has just come and gone as quickly as this one has. So much has happened in these 3 months, from Charlie being born, to house hunting, preparing to put our condo up for sale, moving, unpacking, doctor appointments and registration of all sorts, learning a new town and school, meeting new people, and it's all just happened one thing right after another, with a lot of little stuff in between, so there was never really any time to realize what was happening. It's a pace of life completely unfamiliar to me, and I'm a little shell-shocked by it.
As I realized how fast the time has gone- somehow we're a whole quarter of the way through this year!- it dawned on me what an incredible blessing January was. I wish I had seen it with more clarity at the time. But right now, from where I'm sitting, it was a clear gift from God that I should have taken advantage of. Between the busy time of the holidays and the overwhelmingly busy 3 months we've just been through, January was a big breath of quiet, calm days. Like the eye of the storm. Just quiet, nothing going on, but waiting between the different stages of our life. And all that happened was that I got supremely impatient and worried about when that waiting would be over. That quiet, frozen lake, with not a care in the world? I wish I would have seen it even more clearly than I did, and really appreciated the quietness and the calm. Just space to breathe. To be. To exist without worry and concern. Because that's what I should have been focused on in January, instead of latching on to worry and impatience about Charlie being born. Heavenly Father gave us that extended period of quiet to balance out the insanity and fast pace of these last 3 months. The lake thaws, the spring snows melt, and the water becomes a fast-moving river moving on to the next stage downstream. And so we've moved along, carried by the river of life at a swift pace, and only looking back do we see how far we've come and how much we've done in so short a time. I feel like I just stood up, turned around, and have wide, wondering eyes as I look back. That calm, quiet, frozen January seems at once so recent and so long ago. I think if I had been grateful for it in the moment, it would have been so enjoyable and lovely, instead of something I'm just recognizing in hindsight.
I hope that our time moving forward will perhaps slow down a little bit, but even if it doesn't, I'm so glad for the blessings we have, and the new people in our lives who make the craziness tolerable. Like I told the kids very recently when they asked, "Why did we have to move to California?!", life is one big adventure. And if we never went any place new or tried new things or opened ourselves up to new experiences, we'd have a pretty boring story. So here we are in a new chapter of our family's adventure, with our move to California. It won't always be easy and exciting, but it will be good. And already, I've learned some amazing lessons.
