Summer Diaries: Water Play

Day 19 of “Waiting For Dad to Come Home”.

We call each other every day. He’s been able to see the progress of my lawn mowing in the yard, the empty loft before the carpet cleaners came, and our son’s latest wiggly tooth. The kids have started praying for him to do well in school. We’ve been keeping busy here with summer packets, lunch at the park, reading books and doing puzzles, activities at church, warm days spent outside, music and dancing, and honestly lots of cleaning for when my family visits soon.

Here are the kids with their favorite areas of our latest favorite splash pad.

One night we ended up listening to the music I grew up with from boybands and groups like A*Teens. That was a trip! Crazy how I remembered a lot of the words. The kids favorite new song is “Bye Bye Bye” by NSYNC, and their favorite music video is the one where the band are toys in a store “It’s Gonna Be Me”. I had to explain how Justin Timberlake is Branch from the Trolls movies they love so much.

These kids brighten my day with our conversations.

F: When I’m a Dad I’m going to have 3 turtles 🐢, 2 dogs 🐕, 6 guppies 🐠 , and 2 kids…
Me: That’s all very specific, why 3 turtles?
F: It’s the right amount.
Me: Why 2 dogs?
F: One is mine, one for my wife.
Me: 😂
F: And 6 guppies bc there will be 4 baby guppies and 1 Mom named Treasure, and 1 Dad named Bubbles.

🥺🥰

And then I hear things like this.

“Did you know that my heart feels alonely without Dad?”

W on July 7, 2022

He intentionally combined both words—alone, and lonely.

---

I share a lot of good days on here, but the truth is I’m a human being who also has downs. One day I couldn’t even get out of bed; from sunrise to sundown literally didn’t get up, eat, drink, nothing—just laid there, cried, and couldn’t get enough sleep. Not sure when I became this person overwhelmed by daily life, but it definitely feels like I am coming out of a depression.

I don’t like figuring out and then actually making what to eat 3x/day x 30 = almost 100. Ever since W’s doctor appointment where the resolution was to feed him lots of protein and healthy fats, I’ve felt like I needed to just try harder. I feel guilty when I let my kids have cereal for dinner, or order a pizza, or ask them to eat leftovers again because I’m just too tired and mentally depleted. Don’t even get me started on cleaning; we’re not messy, but I tend to let certain things pile up and then clean lots of things at the same time.

I watched some YouTube videos on How to Clean When You Don’t Feel Like Cleaning (or hate it) lol. My favorites were following along with other people who were also cleaning. I recently learned that our brains help us feel sensations we watch in movies, so no wonder watching a video of someone cleaning helped motivate me. I liked these tips / techniques:

• Work methodically up-to-down, left-to-right, from a starting point all the way back.
• How much you can get done in 15 minutes?
• Think about why you are cleaning.
• Reward yourself when you’ve finished (something to look forward to).
• Do just one small task, and as your brain rewards you let one task naturally snowball into more.
• Preventative maintenance (e.g. less laundry more often, not letting things build up)

I’m trying to gear up because I plan to cook and do lots of activities next week while my family visits. I did end up booking a Bed and Breakfast for when Jer comes back, and I’m super excited about it because we’ve never been before.