Under Pressure

I have felt enormous pressure since the moving process started. Get packed, unpacked, painted, put away and cleaned in time for the Easter party. Phew. Get packed, unpacked, cleaned out so you can turn in the old house key. Get the kids organized, closets organized, etc moving stuff. All this while keeping the kids on their respective schedules. I've felt enormous pressure not to rock the boat.

Aside from the pressure within myself which is always the worst and within my household there is external pressure. Pressure to meet deadlines for old landlords and new landlords. Pressure to stretch a budget that is taxed with moving expenses. Pressure to still make it to family functions smiling after hellishly long days sweeping behind large appliances and literally cleaning the fridge from the inside. Pressure to keep everyone motivated and on track. Pressure to keep up my social life when all I want to do is crawl into bed for a week.

Pressure not to show my stress or pain. This is a big one right now because the move and potty training are happening concurrently. When your toddler has an accident you have to smile sweetly and explain where their bodily fluids are supposed to go. If you spook them it's game over. I'm pretty good at this usually, but today Riley sat happily on the potty watching cartoons and then took a huge poop on the floor next to the potty. It was big and smelly. I breathed through my mouth detained the pooper and called for back up. While Mike handled the floor I went to rinse off Riley's shoes. They looked like tiny cakes frosted with fecal matter. It was not the first time in the process that she stepped in her own poop. I kept looking at the floor so that Miss Roo wouldn't see my disgusted face. I gagged with my back turned while saying things like "almost big girl, in the potty next time."

Now I feel pressure to explain myself. I feel, maybe wrongly, judged for potty training my not quite 20mo old right now. I feel pressure to end the horrible rashes and infections once and for all, but for the most part I'm just following Riley's lead on this. Later in the day she went to the bathroom door and knocked. When I opened it she lifted the lid on the toilet and put her Sesame Street seat on it. She said "up." and I obliged. Sure enough this poopy made it in the big potty. She throughly enjoyed wiping and flushing while sweetly calling "bye-bye". She even got a potty super star sticker for that one.

Let us not forget the pressure of finding things. Finding the right pan, a certain shirt or a pair of scissors leads to major meltdowns right now. It gets a little better everyday. It occured to me, watching Mike build the swing set, that tools and kitchen utensils are similar. There's is a perfect tool for every job in the kitchen a wonderous utensil or machine, but I don't own most of them. I cook with what I have which is less than perfect, but gets the job done. Mike doesn't always have the exact right tool (although his dad is striving to fix that one Christmas at a time -air compressor, nail gun, etc), but he gets the job done.

Things are letting up...kind of...slowly...God willing...I hope.