My very own swirling eddy

Swinging back from buoyant to overloaded . . . .

Today my "mother's helper", the 18 year old who has been helping me for a few hours each week, was here.  (It is also coincidentally her last time helping, as she is moving to Maryland in three days.)  Over the month she was able to come, I whittled my expectations down from SPECTACULAR to survival with each passing week.  No grand projects.  Just maintenance.

So today I washed sheets and made sure the beds were made before she left.  I also washed a load of towels, hung them out to dry along with the sheets, and hand-washed Jamie's woolen night diaper cover.  And by golly, I finally got up the baby calendars to compare and contrast my first three babies' development and personalities with my fourth little cherub.  I've been meaning to do this for more than two months.

You should see these calendars.  Diego's is perfect.  It is loaded with pictures and every month is filled out to a 'T'. Truen's calendar has pictures, but they aren't pasted in yet.  April 2008 is still blank with a folded piece of paper shoved in, the notes I took that month while at my parents' house.  Yeah.  I haven't actually written it in yet.

I also haven't even finished the physical calendar, and by that I mean binding it and hole-punching the top of each month, as I had the grand inspiration of a handmade baby calendar for my second child. Oh dear.

Jamie's baby calendar is complete other than his first two months, which was written on a bank calendar and not transferred over yet.  I was smart enough to not attempt a "from-scratch" baby calendar again but not intelligent enough to actually get a baby calendar before the babe was born.  Ahem.

Also, Jamie's calendar does not have any pictures.  I did order them in early 2012, but made the mistake of deciding that it would be a good idea to order pictures from the entire year that 1) I really liked, and 2) would be an accurate representation for the year.

Let's just say that when the four pound box arrived, my knees turned to jelly.  It was beyond overwhelming.  And so . . . the box was banished to the abyss of our bedroom closet.  It was too much.  I couldn't even face it.

But now.  But now!  But now I want to see the pictures of my sweet little Baby Jamie during each particular month.  I want a visual to go along with the information.  Cue gut-wrenching groans and a head-slap or two.

At least with Truen's calendar I can flip to each specific month, even if it is laying atop the chest of drawers instead of on the wall like Diego's.  Jamie's is hanging nicely on the wall, but there's a hole in my heart where the pictures should be.

So dramatic, I know.

And so, today during my hour-long Quiet Time which was interrupted 3-4 times by baby burps and a boy's bathroom break, I tackled that gargantuan box.  Ugh.

The first task was to refamiliarize myself with my purpose and intent when I first made the order.  I realized that the pictures were sorted by title instead of date, so the second priority was to sort by date.  All bazillion pictures.

I conquered, but then my time was up.  Tomorrow?  Only time will tell, but my will is set.