busy running in circles

lately, i feel like my head is cloudy.  i feel like i'm always running late, always busy, always playing catch up, but i really don't feel any focus or direction.  i know a lot of this is linked to the phase abigail is in right now (taking forever to do everything, needing to be by my side constantly, stalling allthefreakingtime, and being whiny and wearing on my patience) and that i'll have to suck it up and just ride it out, but it's hard.  yesterday and today especially.  

abigail is skilled.  she can completely dress and undress herself.  she puts her dirty clothes (and clean clothes actually!) away.  she puts her diapers (and brady's!) in the diaper pail.  she wipes up her spills.  she turns on her own nightlight and picks out her own bedtime story.  she goes to the bathroom by herself and needs minimal assistance washing her hands (i have to squirt the soap for her).  she feeds herself and takes her dirty dishes to the sink.  she cleans up her toys.  she gives brady toys and a binky if he's fussy.  she climbs in and out of her car seat.  and although i'll stop there, she does a million more awesome things that i don't even have time to type out right now.  she's pretty amazing.

the thing that bothers me though is that all of those things take for-ev-er.  really FOREVER.  it can easily take two hours from the time she wakes up to the time we walk out the door and the only thing she's done in the meantime is get dressed and eat breakfast.  same story getting home from somewhere.  we can get home at 1 and somehow it takes two hours to eat lunch and get ready for nap.  there's typically three hours between the time she gets up from nap and the time she goes to bed.  the entire three hours is spent painstakingly trying to move her from one activity to the next.  it drives me crazy because really i just want to to go the playground or play in the playroom or bake a treat or something but it's almost never possible because we barely even have time to read a book.  i have a lot of experience with kids.  and with kids of this age.  i know they like to do things by themselves and they stall before naps and are pokey about eating lunch.  but somehow, my kid takes this to a whoooooooole new level.  i talked to my friend, weed, about it and she kept saying the same thing over and over again.  basically, we believe in reincarnation.  because three year old abigail is the three year old me.  sadly, i'm still the slowest person i've ever met in my entire life but that's a whole other post for another day.

anyways, today, we woke up, went to the playground with friends, had nap time (not "napped" because abigail hasn't actually fallen asleep for nap time in over a week), cleaned up/watched strawberry shortcake/took a shower while brady napped, had young womens at my house while my mil watched my kids, and went to bed.  but yet, the whole day was just rushing from one thing to the next.  i didn't even get a chance to shower until riiiiiight before everyone showed up at my house for the activity.  no makeup and my hair was still completely wet.  i just want a lazy day at home with my kids.  baby girl, don't take 20 minutes stalling going to the bathroom and maybe we'll have time to make brownies, okay?

 

how does this even happen?!

 

he woke up from this nap after 45 minutes, completely hysterical.  not sure if it was because he wasn't swaddled or because my mil went in to get him since i was downstairs with the yw.

ding dong ditching treats

no reason why all three of them needed to sneak to the door and run back but it definitely made things more fun that way.

one laughs and then the other laughs and then they both just laugh harder.  best snowball effect ever.

they rolled all over together.  alllll over.  laughing and giggling and squirming and rolling.

i'm just the awkward third wheel.

 crossing my fingers that tomorrow will be less "busy" and more clear and carefree.  and that i'll magically have a ton of patience and my house will stay clean.