I’d love to get to a place where from the get go it doesn’t affect me, but i’m not quite there yet...

22/4/24

 I haven’t been writing much, between Mum and Dad being away, school holidays, sleep deprivation and spending time with Jamie, life has gotten VERY busy! I am trying to lead a very intentional and present life, especially as I get to know my new love & when we have all 5 kids it’s full on haha. With Mum and Dad away I am getting no decent amount of time to myself, and no chance to remotely sleep in, no help with the kids at all (Jamie can’t really help between his kids and working fulltime but when he is at ours he helps as much as he can of course), it’s also frustrating that being in a new relationship we can’t go on dates or have ANY time to ourselves, the only time we get to ourselves is when the kids are in bed! By then we are tired AF. But I guess that’s dating when you’re in your 30’s and have 5 kids between you right? This is a whole nother level of life I simply have never experienced and frankly have no clue how to navigate, but of course I will just do what I always do, take each day at a time, do what feels right and trust the process. I know it is also a short time in the grand scheme of things that my parents are away, and when they are back we can then get 24 hours together once a fortnight. But even then that sounds so shit, but only his kids have another parent, that’s the reality of me being a widow, my kids are with me all the time, only my parents can have them overnight. Maybe that will change down the line who knows, but for now while they are so young they are my only option. I would love to try have a few go-to people for baby sitting to be able to go to the odd event or date time in the weekend but its extremely hard as I only have a few good mates I’d trust but they have incredibly busy lives themselves and throwing them an extra couple of kids for a few hours doesn’t seem fair. I’ve also never paid a babysitter before, I just have a thing about a stranger being with my kids, but I guess I’ll have to get over that one day? I don’t know.