Day 72

Today has been a nice day for the most part... Solomon is feeling almost all the way better, and he gave me a wonderful gift of sleeping in this morning! But then the crew that is fixing the roof of our neighbors arrived just as I was drifting back to sleep, and banged away right outside our window! :) figures!
It's OK though, Zoe didn't wake up once, no child called me as they threw up (because no one threw up!) everyone slept. Ahhhhhhh, I repeat :)
So instead of sleeping I watched a TV show, and relaxed. I was doing a good job of feeling good about taking time for myself, when all of a sudden I started feeling guilty. I started coming up with reasons why I was justified in taking the time to do something as silly and wasteful as watch TV. I was thinking of ways to tell Solomon that I had not slept, but had not come to help with kids either. And even considering not telling him that I had in fact been awake! I was getting defensive, and I had not even seen another member of the family yet!
I caught myself though, and realized that I normally make excuses for why I need to take time for myself, but it is with a ton of guilt and self loathing heaped on, so I don't actually get to enjoy myself, or feel good about taking care of myself! Super stupid!
But because I saw and heard what I was doing to myself, I stopped and reframed it. I remembered that I do not have to feel guilty about taking care of myself. I am worth the care. I remembered that if I don't love myself that I can't love my family. I remembered that it's not selfish to start the day with joy and a sense of value. That when I feel good and happy, that my whole family benefits. That the real selfishness would be to go into my day feeling bad about myself and taking that to the rest of the house. So I came out of it, and felt much better for quite a while.
It wasn't a perfect day by any stretch. But it was productive. I did laundry, made Christmas cookies with the kids, finished making the Christmas gifts for each kid, and made chicken soup for dinner. I thought ahead a bit about plans for Christmas eve and Christmas day, and made some pre-prep for all the cooking. And I had some good connections with each of the kids. It was not intentionally a task I gave myself, but I do think that I had at least one positive exchange with each of them.
Progress not perfection!