An Anonymous Journal

We took our little boy on a tour of his new school today. It was really sweet to see him take everything in. The special needs coordinator for the school was amazing, and I am so optimistic about DS’s experience here. How have we already reached the age for Kindergarten? It feels like he was just born yesterday!

Husband and are okay. Our version of okay anyway. I heard a story today about someone’s horrific significant other and it helped to put things in perspective a bit. DH is a generally good guy. Definitely passive aggressive and not very kind to me or tolerant of emotions he doesn’t like. But by and large he’s a good guy.

I’m also trying to focus a bit more on improving me and caught myself just yesterday falling into a bad habit I’m trying to kick.

I have this tendency to take on too much when nobody even asked me to do it. Then I continue taking on too much without letting the other people know I’m overextending myself to make them happy. Then I start to grow frustrated and feel under appreciated when my voluntary sacrifices go unnoticed and I feel like I’m giving too much. But it’s my own fault. They never asked me to do that, usually wouldn’t want that sort of imbalance, and I’m just creating this all by myself.

When I was creating the nanny’s schedule, I initially drafted it solely with her preferences in mind. I was knowingly putting myself in a bind, scheduling her for times I didn’t need her, giving her days off where I definitely did need her, and I was actually getting anxious and upset before I was even finished. Normally I would have just sent it, grown frustrated with the stresses I had created, and found myself being overwhelmed because I was more interested in people pleasing than in considering my needs.

But I’m proud that I stopped, created an entirely new alternate schedule that met my needs whilst also considering her preferences. In some instances I could accommodate, but in others I couldn’t because the circumstances didn’t allow for it.

I took a huge leap and sent her the alternate schedule. I was really surprised at how good it felt. Especially when she was totally happy with the schedule. It sounds so silly, but this was big for me. A small taste of beginning to slow my people pleasing roll ever so slightly!