At the end of every summer, a dark cloud arrives at my front door. It kind of rivals the dead of winter in Chicago, where it\u2019s just too cold to go out and with all the effort it takes to bundle everyone up it\u2019s just better to stay at home in your warm socks and hibernate. Here, of course, it\u2019s the heat and the mosquitos and going to the pool is just too much work. And since I\u2019m not a crafty mom it\u2019s basically a cyclical schedule of dress-up, reading books, watching endless hours of Sprout and eating, which is something my almost 5 year old is doing with abandon these days. Growth spurt, much? Fortunately, we seem to be entering into a new phase of actually playing well together, if even for an hour or so. It almost makes me feel like I\u2019m being neglectful \u2013 is it ok for them to play alone upstairs? Do I need to be in the same room with them?? This is all new to me. But here\u2019s the biggest thing: these \u201cdog days\u201d are tough on me and my mental well-being. The last two days I have been in such a funk \u2013 I think Vann was concerned something might be physically wrong with me. Recently, he came home from work and I was crashed out on the loveseat in the playroom while the girls created chaos around me. I was just. so. tired. Now, before you get all concerned \u2013 I am taking my meds and yes, I\u2019ve struggled with depression off and on my whole adult life. I\u2019m an extrovert and get my energy from other people, my friends, my peeps. Strangely, summer feels so lonely to me. I know, all the Vitamin D and all\u2026but everyone is in and out of town and schedules are erratic and there isn\u2019t any unadulterated Mommy time unless you get a sitter and\/or your hubby graciously agrees to give you a night off. I\u2019m gonna say something controversial \u2013 I can\u2019t be with my kids all the time and stay sane. I need routine, preschool, MOPS, church, MNO\/GNO, Bunco \u2013 all the things that keep my mind firing on all cylinders. I miss the rush out the door to get the girls to school on time, the interaction with friends in the parking lot, meeting those same friends for lunch and feeling a little more energized at 2:30 pm when I come back to pick them up. I feel like there is this catch-22: on the one hand it\u2019s easier to spend a morning at home because you can stay in your comfies and all of your \u201cstuff\u201d is close by \u2013 on the other hand it\u2019s harder because your 2 year old\u2019s screams reverberate off the walls in such close proximity you want to claw your eyes out. And yet, she just might scream if you take her out of the house, so sometimes I wonder \u2013 what\u2019s the point?? So excuse me for just surviving these last 3 weeks before my life (hopefully) returns to the norm I know and love. And before you ask me if I\u2019m exercising and doing all those things to get endorphins going \u2013 yes, yes, I am. At 5:30 am, which in no way helps me in the middle of the day when I want to dangle my children from the catwalks. I\u2019m kidding, of course. Sort of. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the end of every summer, a dark cloud arrives at my front door. It kind of rivals the dead of winter in Chicago, where it\u2019s just too cold to go out and with all the effort it takes to bundle everyone up it\u2019s just better to stay at home in your warm socks and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1147,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/1147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/almostjuliet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}