Life, man.
We've been planning this trip to North Carolina for about 5 months (because when you have 3 kids, one of them being an infant, Trips take Planning). We found a great travel plan where we'd drive a small chunk on day one, get the kids to bed, and stuff them into the car at 3:30 in the morning to do the bulk of the drive in one day.
And it worked. Mostly.
Much like the last 30 seconds of a basketball game can take 30 minutes to play, the last hour of our drive stretched into two as our middle child complained of belly pain and then threw up all over the car seat. And then again 20 minutes down the road in the Circle K bathroom after we'd already stopped for cleanup and wardrobe change.
We wrote it off to motion sickness.
We were wrong.
How wrong? Well, it passed to everyone in the family (and, unfortunately, beyond - our 2024 Spring Forest pilgrimage became known as the Plaguerimage).. I got it the least severely. It apparently spread beyond our family because…norovirus does that. We had pinned a lot of hopes and expectations of rest on this time away and yet…life happens. Kids pick up germs. Kids get sick. Parents comfort kids. Parents get sick. Suddenly it's five days later and you're all healthy but somehow, even though you've all rested, you're all seriously wiped. Except the kids aren't wiped, it's just the parents.
This bout with the stomach flu (and honestly, this season of sickness stretches back all the way to the beginning of the year when we got COVID) highlighted to me that we're in a super tough season of life right now where our capacity is much more limited than our ambition. Are there things we'd like to contribute to the community and to neighbors and things to develop on our land? Absolutely. Are we also in this season where kids take up most of our available time and energy and the unpredictability of their needs take up what little margin we have left and anything we give beyond this mounds up like insurmountable credit card debit with a 30% interest rate? Also yes.
I can't help but think that there must be some solution out there to rebalance our lives (i.e., how do we refinance the credit card that is our life?!?). There isn't much more that can be chucked off our plates.
And then I remember our baseline reality is that we have a household where we’re always negotiating chronic illness with careful stewardship of energy and sleep. It means common viruses take longer to recover from (and can possibly trigger a relapse if we aren’t vigilant, thank you to COVID for that lovely gift).So there’s already some limits baked into our lives. Sometimes we don’t have to worry about them too closely and sometimes it’s an all-too-present reality. Add in the recent stressors in our life, constant germs, and a baby with unpredictable sleep, it's no wonder there’s little margin in our life right now.
I also remember the birthing class we took at Birthroots when we were expecting Michael, and the instructor shared that this particular season of parenting small humans - the in the thick of it season - is about the first three years of their life. She compared this particular season of parenting to a labyrinth - a journey winding its way to the center and our again with twists and turns. With a labyrinth, you have to trust the path to find your way back out again. Our instructor noted that this part of the parenting journey is about 3 years. (Of course, she did also mention that by the 3rd year mark, many parents are planning on entering that labyrinth again by adding more children to their family). We're in our third pass through this labyrinth, and definitely feeling like we're in one of the twisty bits.
It’s only a season (though you never know when seasons will end). And there are times where you need to rely more heavily on your community, trusting that there will be times and ways to give back as well. Yes, it’s a struggle knowing that we’re deep down in the kid hole, but I know we will emerge into a more stable rhythm one day.
Until then, we'll take all the viruses as they come.
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| A picture of Forest Feast Setup, and finally everyone was healthy! |
