Scrub Days.

Some days, all my best laid plans and ideas for the day just. aren't. working. Getting little minds and hands corralled into any activity is like trying to herd drunken cats. Or juggle them. It's difficult.

I used to end these days crying after everyone was asleep, in my favorite "comfort" pajamas over a carton of vanilla greek yogurt, asking my cat questions like: "Why is this so hard? Why can't I get them to follow this awesome plan? Am I failing all my kids completely? Why do I SUCK?! Do you even care?"

Then, on one of Those Days, I noticed something. I'd stuck everyone in the car and released them into a big park with a field, in effort to not yell at anyone harshly out of frustration. (Don't pretend now. We all do that sometimes. ;oP ) They meandered into a giant pavilion with a sandpit and so immersed their minds in play and their toes in sand that they stayed there happily for 3 full hours. It struck me that this is probably what they needed all along.

So now, when a day's just not working, I scrub all plans. Done. There's now nothing on the docket, except sitting and waiting for the day to tell us what needs to happen for us all to find our balance again. The answer always presents itself, eventually, and it's usually the youngest of us that discovers the truth first. (More often than not, if you let the youngest member of the family set the barometer for the day, things are bound to be more successful all around, in my experience, which sort of flies in the face of conventional wisdom I suppose.)

Sometimes, the solution is a day doing nothing but reading in bed together. Sometimes, we have an impromptu trip to the park. Often, it's building elaborate tents and tunnels with quilts and chairs and tables, and pretending until people fall asleep under a hideout or indoor makeshift hammock. Another favorite go-to is gross motor movement activities like tree climbing or building dams in streams with rocks or scaling giant wood chip mounds. Almost invariably, sour moods are put right again, tempers stop flaring and the pointless urgency of the atmosphere drains lazily out of the day like water out of a long, luxurious bath.

Grace and Lark's bear cave

Sometimes, we simply toss pillows in the floor and watch movies together while eating popcorn (everyone gets their OWN bowl.) If we need to run out and grab snacks just to get through that day, so be it. (And who says anyone needs matching shoes anyway? There are days for nice outfits and matching shoes, and then there are days to celebrate the hilarity of being a little ridiculous!)

Most importantly, there's no pushing through or powering ahead when everyone's got a bad case of "the stupids" (you know, the days when every instruction is met with a blank stare), or the grumpies, or when the whole family is just restless in general. There's only stopping and trying to find our bliss on Scrub days. And that's OK.

It's OK because Scrub Days are about finding something our routine made us leave behind. Relationship. Connection. Alone time. Fantasy. Imagination. Our inner monkey. When we give ourselves time to honor the part inside us that's screaming for air and sustenance, so that we can become balanced people again. Then we can move forward and think about words like "accomplishment" and "rhythm" and "planning".

 All work and no play makes Jane a dull/grouchy/spaced out/whiny/incomplete girl. So instead pecking away at the impossible, we relax and let our Muses carry us effortlessly to where we needed to go in the first place. Does it look indulgent and lazy to others? Sure. Who cares! We know it's wise. We know it works. And that's really all that matters.

Getting lost in wonderland.

Dreams

Given the fact that you remember whatever dreams happened closest to a waking point, I'm not sure whether pregnant women actually dream more, or if they simply wake up in the night more. I can vouch for the fact that I wake up at least a dozen times a night to shift pillows, pee, and sometimes for no reason at all.

At any rate, I've quite an active dream life at the moment.

As a third time mom, I'm noticing my dreams revolving less around birthing a talking baby seal in a tuxedo or leaving the baby at the open air market, and more around terrible things happening to my older two.

My most recent horrific "sleep brain movie" was dreaming that my 2yo wandered towards a giant grate covering a culvert under the road full of floodwater, fell in before I could grab her, and I was desperately searching everywhere for an opening to jump in after her. I woke up with my heart pounding over 130 BPM, and had to repeat to myself over and over: "She's OK, I can protect her better than that in real life, she's really just here beside me. She's good, I'm good, we're good." Breathe, breathe, breathe. It's THE most awful feeling you can feel as a parent.

Not one to take most dreams as predictions or warnings, I called a friend to talk it over. Of course, I'm worried about my middle "baby" getting lost in the shuffle of family adjustments. I had similar dreams about my firstborn when I was pregnant with my second...you'd think I'd learn. :OP

Strangely enough, this funny little story brought me comfort. :D

There's room enough in my family for another child. There's love enough to go around. We're capable, and children are fairly flexible. There's time enough to love and "shuggle" (as my 2yo calls snuggling) everyone. No one will fall irretrievably down a drainpipe.

Now, if I could only find a reasonable explanation for the odd sex dreams, dreams of being chased by an ugly pig man and stabbing him with a fork, strange hybrid rabid crocodiles and dreams about jumping around rooftops like Mary Poppins, I'll be all set.

What's that you say? Hormones? Yes. That is a reasonable explanation for everything that currently ails me. That and forgetting to take my cal/mag. ;OP