On Being Overbooked

A co-worker of mine recently said he was having a "No Joy" day. I guess it has something to do with the military (which doesn't surprise me), but I thought it was an accurate summary of how I feel when I have way too much to do. That has been happening a lot lately. No Joy occurs for me when I find that I am skimming along the surface of my life, never really paying attention because I'm too worried about the next meeting, the next class, the next bath for the baby, the next party to attend or for which to buy food. I'm not the sort of person who thrives on or enjoys this lifestyle, though I'm sure this will shock those who know me. The happiest part of my life came during my maternity leave, when for the first time since I can remember, I started noticing things like dust motes in the sunlight and the smell of grass again, even though I was up to my ears in dirty diapers and deaf from screaming-child syndrome. I only really had one thing to concentrate on - my baby - and it bowled me over how happy that made me.

For some reason, I thought once we had the little angel that our social calendar would die down. I even mourned the thought a bit. I'm sure it still will in the future, once the little angel doesn't WANT to sit in a restaurant on Friday night like she does now, or once she goes to bed at 8:30 p.m. in an actual bed. Of course, at that point, she will probably start having her OWN social calendar, which I will get to manage in addition to my own. I anticipate that far from encouraging her to take flute lessons, dance lessons, soccer lessons and learn three foreign languages by the age of five, I will ask her to please PICK ONE and stick with it for at least a season before tossing it aside.

Don't get me wrong - I'm relieved to still have wonderful friends calling me to get together. I really enjoy the social part of the calendar. But trying to balance my full-time job, seeing my husband, my part-time teaching gig, my social life, exercise and the tiny sliver of what I used to have to spend with the little angel has left me feeling a bit discombobulated. I have been trying to remember if my mother and my friend's mothers seemed this frantic when I was growing up. They probably were, if not in exactly the same way, then in different ways. It certainly can't keep up, though.

So I ask you, is it possible to not feel this way? If I cut out everything in my life, would I actually feel any better? Or is this self-reflection and judgement just a necessary step in adjusting to motherhood? I do find that many people in my life who have kids fall into two camps: those that fought the change and those who sank into it like an overstuffed chair. Those who fight still get pedicures on a regular basis, clothe their children in outfits involving stiff collars made from delicate-cycle materials and purchase outdoor Pack-N-Plays. They look really good, though. Those who wallow in the change too much end up disregarding grooming altogether, dressing to match their children and talking in four-word sentences, even to adults. Where's the happy medium? Is there such a thing? Can one be a hip mom without encouraging smoking, drinking and new babies when the first one is still in middle school? Can one stop the child from working a forty-hour, extracurricular week without crushing their hopes for playing varsity basketball? Can one really shape the child's reading ability by whether or not one points out syllabic functions in "Goodnight, Moon"? Why is the world so different now? Does my baby need her own cell phone? Will the other preschoolers all have Blackberries? Will she speak in acronyms by the time she is eight?

HELP!!!!