"So Loranda, what have you been up to?"
"Um... uh... babies..."
Whenever someone asks me what I've been up to lately, I have no idea what to say. I am busy, from morning to (and sometimes through) night, but how do I sum up what I do, or explain how it takes up all of my energy? I can't. I try to talk about the big things, the things I have planned, the things I'm doing around the house (because lets be honest, I spend 85% of my time at the home because that's where my babies high chairs and cribs are) and I feel like I have to say stuff about myself that's unrelated to babies.
"Um, I am busy working towards some Lush deadlines... um... I painted my kitchen"
How do I tell someone it takes me 10 minutes to simply walk down a flight of stairs (I plan on writing an entire post on just coming downstairs - coming soon), 15 minutes to get from the front door to the car. An entire hour to feed the babies lunch and another hour for dinner (feeding, which doesn't include preparing the food). Whoever said "Patience is a virtue" must have had toddlers.
It's not as though I can "do" much outside of baby-rearing. "My time" is between 1 and 2:30, at which time I have to be at home, and am usually shower/tidying/working/dinner prepping or laying in a heap of exhaustion. And after 7:30, if the babies aren't teething or sick, I get to relax, and I REALLY look forward to relaxing.
Baby-rearing is an emotionally exhausting, physically exhausting, mentally challenging job. I don't have a lot going on outside of that because I am emotionally, physically and mentally exhausted when I finally do have "me" time. So next time someone asks me what I've been up to, I think instead of waffling about I'm just going to proclaim "Twin Toddlers!" proudly and leave it at that.
6 comments:
Yup, I get it. We spend the morning jumping from one game or toy to the next, or maybe we've gone out for an adventure to the park or the aquarium or something like that. Last week we broke out the finger paints! Then it's naptime and I collapse, then a repeat of more playing and adventuring in the afternoon, followed by more collapsing. Nobody cares that we watched a squirrel in the yard for 20 minutes, or that we chatted with the guys cutting down the trees in our neighbourhood, but those sure were highlights for Jackson!
Ha, just thinking again about what you said about going down the stairs... just today we were trying to go out and as usual, Jack is chatting about leaves, the gate, the cat, whatever as we leave the house and are approaching the stairs. He looks for where there is usually a spider web, he comments on the Christmas lights and how they are off but when it's dark they come on, he comments on how the paint is chipped on the stairs and that you can see the wood, and where Jebus scratches the post at the bottom. Oh and of course how he is a big boy and can do it "all by self." And all of these comments are made expecting a reply out of me, except it's the same comments EVERY TIME we go down the stairs! I don't have much to say about the lights, spider web or paint chips anymore! But maybe I should...
Amen!! I went back to school this summer, cause you know, i don't have enough going on. And people now as me, so how was hte course? Well, i'm still working on it. Then they look all shocked...seriously people, i have 3 year old twins, I have a husband who travels for work and i work part time...i get done what i can when i can! And yes they totally don't understand, or care, that just making the bed can take 20 mins cause you get asked for food or drink of they decide to come play in the bed while you make it etc etc.
Lol Jen! Oh it takes so much energy simply to TALK sometimes hey? Especially because you're trying to be interesting, informative and upbeat. I usually find it very difficult to talk to the babies before I have my coffee.
Oh Alyson, I don't know how you're doing school too! I find with work, I think about it when I'm doing it, and when I'm not doing it I'm completely not thinking about it and in 100% mom mode. So when people ask me about anything else while I'm in mom mode, I am caught off-gaurd and can't think of anything to say!
Hi Loranda. I might be missing the point, but I think phrases like "what have you been up to?" are much less about what you've actually been up to and more about filling any silence in a conversation. I recently bumped into an old friend from elementary school who I haven't seen in years. He asked me what I've been up to, and instead of going through the list of things that have happened since I last saw him (including graduating from high school, getting married, etc..), I just said "not much, how about you?". Humans are social animals and we really don't like silence, so we fill it with phatic expressions like "what's new?" in order to fill space until a more substantial topic comes along. It doesn't matter whether you've been working towards curing cancer, climbing a mountain or watching a lot of dora the explorer, the point is to fill the silence while you search for a new topic. Proclaiming "Twin Toddlers!", no matter how proudly, will probably just have the opposite effect and create more awkward silence. But with the twins being at a stage in their life where they are changing and growing by the minute, I can't imagine you wouldn't have a million new things that you'd want to share the next time someone asks you what you've been up to.
Saying "what have you been up to?" is simply what people say to one another, you're right. I guess my point is that "what have you been up to?" is the phrase that actually leads to awkwardness now. This post is just about constantly being caught off guard by that question and needing a response that a) doesn't dive into the million things I could go on about babies (because I really don't think a lot of people are actually interested in the specifics - I get a lot of "ah nice" when I do that, and it tends to be kind of a one-sided convo). And although saying "not much" is an option, that closes me off, and really isn't true. "Twin Toddlers" has weight to it; it implies that I've been busy, am tired and most importantly, distracted (hence my poor conversational skills). Saying in response hasn't gotten awkward responses, but usually gets me sympathetic sighs, or specific questions about that (if they are interested), or I get the chance to focus the conversation on the other person.
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