Christmas is over - now what?

I have to keep remembering myself these days that we have a blog. Before Christmas I checked it everyday and had so many things on my mind to post. Now that Christmas is over - I feel sort of empty and disoriented. Today I cleaned my apartment. It was gross. The floors covered in crums, handicraft leftovers and dead fir needles from our christmas decoration, dirty laundry piles somehow spread in every room, tons of molded leftovers in the fridge... ewwwww! So today, I didn't even care that I didn't have much time to play with Lenara and she turned all grumpy, but I needed to take care of this mess. Which is also proof that I really took it easy over Christmas and New Year. ;) Which in turn, makes me proud of myself. Sometimes I'm just worried that I'm getting too good at taking it easy... and then I read this one post-it I put on my wall:

"You don't live to leave a perfectly cleaned house."

God, how I love that quote. I found it in a women's magazine (which I haven't read any in months) - and immediately fell in love with it, so I cut it out.

What else is going on. One friend visited us today with her 7 week old baby. I loved it! She let me hold him and instantly I got hit by this "ooooh, I want one!" feeling. Maybe I felt so close to this little guy, as we sold our baby equipment to this family. So he was actually laying in our old babysafe, our old perambulator etc. It was a little bit like a flashback.

I know I had a couple of times during those almost 2 years back from now when I promised myself not ever to do this all over again. And yet, I have to admit, I just love children, being a mother just feels incredibly right and being allowed to be part of these little creatures' lives and trying to give them a good start into their very own futures... it's just too amazing. Every bit of exhaustion, desperation, anger, physical pain... it was all worth it in the end. And I know how I grew with every survived little or bigger crisis.

I know this sounds weird, but at times I think, maybe I was meant to do this on my own, as now I have to realize how strong I really am, what I have accomplished - together with Lenara indeed. If I had had P. to live with us, I would probably (like I used) have given him most of the credit for making things work out.

Now I'm at the point that I feel in balance. It's still exhausting at times. Sure. But I know it's a phase. I know how to take better care of my own energy level. And I'm much more self-confident. Plus it's getting more and more fun and rewarding as Lenara is able to communicate and share her feelings with me by now, and everyday there are things she learns and I'm so happy I can help her learn - next to being the happiest toddler in the world. Here's an example:

When she came back from a Daddy day last week, I was taking her shoes off - while Daddy and Grandma were waiting to say their good-byes. Usually she's still all excited and doesn't really notice me. This time she very unexpectedly threw herself into my arms, gave me the biggest hug and said "Mommy, love you". Sigh!

So I guess I'm enjoying day by day again - without having a certain goal (like Christmas) around the corner. I don't have many plans for 2011. Feeling disoriented is just eligible. It's like a white paper in front of me and I'm so very excited before starting to paint it.