Hitting the Wall

"What do you do?"  People ask from time to time.  Well that is a bit of a loaded question these days.  I usually respond with some variation of a stay at home mom who watches kids in my home OR full time student.  It feels like too long of a response to include it all in one answer for some reason.  But in actuality my full response would be something like:

"I am the primary caregiver to an extremely active almost toddler.  In addition to this crazy girl I also watch a 10 month old who is going through a spell of separation anxiety and since he thinks he has two moms he clings to my leg hardcore.  There is also a near two year old who has decided to enter the "terrible twos" early who on the regular full on tantrums if the other kids even look at her and has decided hitting is tots cool if she's mad.  Finally there is a preschooler who comes from time to time who's tag lines are 'I'm bored' and 'Will you play with me?' (he's so sweet I hate telling him no!).

I also told my husband that if I stayed at home with our daughter I would take on all household chores and responsibilities (since I clearly thought I would have oodles of time-smh!).

On top of all of this I decided to fast track my way through a doctoral program taking four classes a semester this year which includes writing the first half of my dissertation and taking my comprehensive exams (three 15 pages composed over the course of a single week).  All of this while monitoring three tiny people who are like moths to a flame to the computer or seem to need my attention every few minutes if I use my standing desk."

On paper this plan seemed like a great idea.  Stay home with my daughter, make a little extra money by providing her with some playmates, maximize the tuition payment by taking as many courses as I could at a time.  In reality turns out it was not my brightest idea and maybe one of my worst:(.

From 5am (or sometimes before) until 9/9:30 at night I am going full throttle.  I refuse to stay up any later because the only thing sustaining this pace is a decent night's sleep (along with prayer and wine of course).  However, after a couple of months of this I. have. hit. the. wall.

There are 7 weeks left in the semester.  My parents were already planning to come down for a week around Isabella's birthday and I've asked them to come down for one more week at some point before the end of the semester.  I truly do not know if I'm going to make it...

11 Months

"I do like these hair bows mama.  It just might be in a different way than you do!"

This baby has such sensitive skin.  Her own drool can irritate it sometimes when she naps:(.

This is 11 months.  

Hard to believe in one month this baby girl will be ONE!