Timeless

I am timeless. I have no time. This is my official apology for not blogging very much these days. I want to. I need to. I just don't have time.

I have a new baby who wants to nurse a lot, 3 older kids with whom I am making penance for years of neglecting their formal writing skills by working with them ad infinitem on writing stuff for their classes, laundry to help with, diapers to wash and stuff, dishes to load, dinners to fix, my wife to murder and Gilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.

I wanted to write a long heartfelt blog about adopting my youngest daughter. But I couldn't even pull off a decent facebook status update on the subject. My phone and I are not getting along, and all the computers are busy writing article summaries and learning to speak Spanish and do 2 digit long division and type more than 20 words a minute.

I would love to write about seeking the Kingdom of God first in my eating habits, or an attempt in that direction. And fitting into size 18 jeans for the first time in well over a decade. And bingeing on raisins and sprouted whole wheat toast.

I could write about my internal debate regarding how to best love my African-American daughter's hair, and all the different schools of thought about how to keep it healthy. It's about parenting style, about racial identity, about my responsibility (or not) to make her look acceptable to the African Americans we encounter in our world, about adopting and wanting to make sure I'm doing right by the child I was given but didn't give birth to, about what is best for the hair and the head and the child, but also being consistent as a mother - I don't spend hours and hours on any other kid's hair. Does it take less time in the end to put her hair in a style once every few weeks than it would to keep it healthy and tangle free daily? For the next year, until she is old enough to express her desire and make a somewhat informed choice, how do we teach her to love her beautiful curls?

I could write about how hard it is to not interfere on behalf of children who are struggling with hard things and just nudge things in their direction, ease the pain, help them in a way that really doesn't help them at all. They have to struggle and fall and learn and grow and (gasp!) fail and repent and change and get up. I cannot grow their character for them.

I could write about my dream of going on a Mediterranean cruise for our anniversary next year.

Anyway, like I said, I just don't have time. I thought, with a laugh, about all the things I've done while nursing lately: flipping pancakes, stuffing diapers, cutting the little nubs off plastic 1:72 revolutionary war soldiers, mopping.

I've been listening to Alyn Jones talk about boundaries and hula hoops and how I am not responsible for other people's happinesses and having my brain circuits fry as I try to work out the ramifications of that little piece of truth. What does that mean in my relationships with my parents, my inlaws, my husband, my neighbors?

O.ver.whelmed. Not complaining. Living. Breathing. Surviving. Content. But no time to write. Baby is waking up.