When my children will never, EVER go to sleep

Yup. It is 10:30 and I am listening to the kids talking and laughing upstairs to Javier. That is because Javier is the nice parent (there has to be one, right?) When it was my turn I made them be quiet :) but they still didn't go to sleep, so who is right on this one? This phase of life feels like it is all about no sleep, ever and not nearly enough hours in the day. The kids may  finally go to sleep, but they will wake up. Max and Sammy will both come and sleep with us in our double bed sometimes between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning and Phoebe of course will want to eat probably 3 times before the sun rises.

Then there is the day...How can one person with so many crazies of life not yet upon her feel so torn? The move to Boise threw me for such a big loop, I still haven't stopped spinning. It is awesome! I love being here with my family, getting to be a part of everybody's life and enjoying the time with aging grandparents and marrying-aged sisters and growing up kids! But at the same time, there are so many new skills to learn being so encompassed with family and I am not there yet.

I have parents, grandparents, 2 brothers and a sister and their families all here, all but my parents live within 3 minutes of us. We see each other twice a week scheduled and often many many more times than that. All the boys work together, I worked all summer with my sister-in -law. We have so much fun together. I love them so dearly. Sometimes it requires a lot of patience though, and tongue biting, and thinking so very hard about every word you may say.

We are all so enmeshed in each-others lives that we cannot ever fight, so the cost of that is sometimes being so guarded that no one who is closest to you knows anything about what you really think or feel about anything. That is hard for me. I feel like I am always crossing unwritten lines and things that have been already learned by everyone else, I am still figuring out how to do. I miss my friends! Oh, still a year later, I don't think a day goes by that I don't think about my friends in Texas and miss them dearly. Part of this transition is Max and Sammy both being in school now and another child. I guess there are just so many new responsibilities now and my family is one of them. I wish I had more time. Time to spend with my kids, time to make new friends, time to be a better daughter/granddaughter/sister/aunt. Also, if feelings are hurt, there is no healing space. We are all together again the next day and you have to pretend to be fine, so it gets very bottled up inside.

They say it takes a year to get to really feeling at home in a new place and a year to feel like yourself after you have a baby so I guess there is still time. I guess I just feel like I am in limbo right now and my fear is that I will always be. I felt such a feeling of purpose in Texas. People needed me for one thing and if I made a blunder somehow it worked out- I didn't see the person for awhile, then I apologized, then I talked to a lot of other people who didn't know anything about the mistakes I made in another context. Now I feel like all I do is make blunders and there is never any escape from  them. I am feeling like screwing up is a part of my identity, which is just unhealthy of me, but it is hard to stop feeling that way. Part of that feeling is that my calling in church is the secretary of the young womens. I LOVE being in young womens in a major way but I am seriously the worst secretary that ever lived.

And so I will end this unpostable rant because my kids are now full on yelling upstairs so Javier has obviously given up and mean mom has to come make everyone go to sleep so we can begin another sleepless night. Sometimes it helps to work this stuff out in words.