Seven Whole Months and a Confused Mother Trying to Balance Her Life

Summer was born seven months ago today. I'm amazed how fast these months are going. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see her monthly posts so close together.

I know these monthly posts are so unoriginal, but I feel like I really need to do them because this is as close as I get to a baby book. I have to do something to remember her when she's little and all her milestones.

And speaking of milestones, Summer finally crawled. Not really, though. She did one crawl-step and then plopped down on her tummy again. She has her army crawl down and she goes really fast when she does it. Plus she's been rocking on her hands and knees for over a month now, so it's about time she just give it up and crawl like all the other babies are doing. Wow, look at what a great mom I am, encouraging my child to hop on a bandwagon. Summer won't have any issues, I'm sure.

She loves to get under the exersaucer, and because she's too young to understand when I'm laughing at her I get a good endorphin boost when she tries to get out.

Clearly, Summer gets her amazing muscle tone from her dad:


These were taken a couple of weeks ago.



Okay, Summer, can you get out?


Okay, arms out. Now try the legs!


Hey, little one, you have to use your right arm.


Nice.

And these were taken today. I know this is a ton of exersaucer pics, a plethora really, but I just find my baby adorable, and I know there are grandmothers looking at this blog who love to look at this girl's mug almost as much as I do.





Mmmm, I swear she's usually wearing pants.

I have conflicting feelings about being a mother. I really don't feel like I'm very good at it. I enjoy my life, but sometimes I feel like Summer just tags along with me while I go about my business. I always planned on being a very proactive, involved mom, even when my kids were really young. And I was, to a fault, until it drove me crazy and my life collapsed around me and Nathaniel told me that Summer really didn't need all the attention I was giving her. I think now I've gone into the other extreme.

I just don't know how to keep the house clean and feed my family and work and do the little hobbies I want to do and have a relationship with my husband and be a good friend and good member of the church and be a good sister/daughter and take care of a baby. When I look at the list, I think something's got go give, but there's nothing I want to let go. I remember a lesson by a former bishop who asked us to draw a little pie chart and put in it all of the different commitments we have. In that chart, we were to put how well we thought we were doing in each area.

Bishop Klein said, "You're never going to have 10s in every one of these areas. In fact, you probably shouldn't. If you have an eight in every one, you're doing amazing. Most are going to be fives or sixes." Or something like that.

That's pretty much what I had. I went from feeling like a failure to feeling like I was doing okay.

Now, I feel like a failure. I just look around me and it seems like everyone is able to do so much more than I do. I really think they're just more efficient with their time. Just now, it took me four hours to make dinner and that doesn't include washing the dishes. It's so hard for me because I can't keep my focus on something with a baby in the background, so I constantly have to re-group and remember what the crap I was going to do with the frozen vegetables and knife that are sitting on the counter.

So how do you do it?