enough

My almost 8 year old daughter has a new word in her vocabulary: lazy.

And she's flung it about a couple of times in my general direction.

The first time it happened I was getting her and Laithe ready for bed. Bedtime almost always involves putting away the clean laundry that mom has washed and folded and sometimes sorted and neatly stacked on the end of your bed. The kids hate it. I don't really care. It gets done. This time though I'd sorted Laithe's clothes into 3 piles, shirts, pants, pjs, and left Guthrie's in one big stack. Because if left unattended Laithe will shove all his clothes into the top drawer and eventually the dresser will fall on him when he goes to get dressed. It's a small dresser, it causes no damage and I'm fairly certain it will still happen in college.

Laithe finished putting his clothes away and I was sitting on his bed with him nursing Juniper getting ready to start our nightly chapter book. Guthrie says, "why do you sort his clothes and not mine?" "Well, you're 7 and can be trusted to put your clothes away correctly, but Laithe is 4 and he still has a hard time."

She puts a few more things away and turns away from me and I hear ever so slightly not under her breath "You are SO lazy!"

"Guthrie!"

She turns around, turns beet red and covers her face with her hands. Apology, reprimand and hugs, etc etc. And I laughingly told several people about it because 1. it was so out of character and 2. it's hilarious because, well it just was really really funny - I'd washed, folded, and stacked the clothes on her bed, I was multi-tasking nursing a baby, reading a freaking chapter book to my kids before bed. If that's not overachieving I don't know what is.

The next week we're at my mom's and the kids want us to play in her backyard with them. I wasn't up for it. Again with the "you guys are so lazy" but this time it was not under her breath and this time it was not one bit funny because, well, grandparent. Again with the reprimand and apology and eventual hugs. The end and hasn't been repeated.

Except it's stayed with me.

You are SO lazy!

Not that she said it, but that it's an echo of that inner voice I try so hard to squash.

The one that reminds me that I went to bed again with dishes in the sink, or didn't answer that text or email, or didn't pack my husband's lunch, or let the kids watch another show just so I could sit for a minute, or whatever. She says I'm not doing Enough.

Which, to be blunt, is just fucking ridiculous.

Seriously.

That voice, she is such an asshole! And she only gets particularly loud when I'm feeling overwhelmed -- which first week of homeschooling for the year, 8 week old baby, life in general, any one of those things could make a person feel overwhelmed. I'm well aware that I'm at the stage in life where things will get dropped, frequently, and as long as one of those things is not the baby then #winning.

I think one of the reasons I'm so annoyed by all of this is because I thought I was over this. I thought I had given that voice the boot -- or at least duct taped her mouth shut for the next 5 years. Because I truly believe that the greatest thing we can all do is just show up. Anything else is gravy.

So, here's to Showing Up and knowing it's Enough.  Every time.