Limits

In my San Francisco newlywed days, I used to walk to Whole Foods, pick out and pay for 30 dollars of groceries, and then walk back to our apartment. The dollar limit was for two reasons: 1) Half of our two person unit was gone Monday through Thursday of every week and we just didn't need a lot of food and 2) I'd learned the hard way that I could only carry 30 dollars worth of loot.

My first walking trip to that Whole Foods (affectionately referred to as "WH" in our house because for YEARS I abbreviated it that way in texts, not once realizing it should be WF... ) had me all excited and jazzed to be Euro style, with my walking and my canvas tote and my fresh produce getting. I would choose what struck my fancy and then whip up a locally-sourced-organically-grown-unicorn-picked meal.

Anyway. I got in there and behaved like I'd never set food in a grocery store before. Who even knows what all I bought (we were really into goji berries in days of yore), but I filled my XXL L.L. Bean tote to the brim and then some. I paid and picked it up, quickly realizing there was no way I could carry that thing home like a normal human, using straps and arms. It was much, much too heavy and there were far, far too many hills. So I dragged it home. All along the city sidewalks, up and down and over... Pull pull, pause, rearrange the eggs, pull pull, pause, now the cilantro. 

I ruined that (brand new) bag, put huge holes on the bottom and ripped some of the seams. I was so mad at myself! Also embarrassed. Also my arms were killing me.

So I learned that 90 dollars of groceries wouldn't work. But 30 could. 

I run into things like this all the time with mothering a second child. Things that used to have me choking back tears with Harper just don't take me down anymore. It took a few years, but I've started to learn my parenting limits. I don't have to tackle the grocery store and then do story time at the library and then return shoes to Target and then do housework and then drive against rush hour to meet a friend at an inconvenient park and then cook a locally sourced unicorn meal and then put a load of cloth diapers in and then and then. I was always racing against a clock, or trying to fill the hours manically, and ended up ripping a lot of metaphorical totes along the way.

Last week I had an errand to run at the Apple Store. I usually dread going to the mall in any scenario, let alone with an infant person. But then I remembered I didn't have to tack on forty eleven extra errands to the day. If I felt tired or overwhelmed (uh I'm not so much of a hothouse flower that the mall wilts my will to live, but there have been a lot of 5:00 mornings around here and adding up the preschool driving and mall driving there was going to be 2+ hours in the car), I just had to do the usual tasks and this one bonus thing. I left plenty of time to get to the mall and to park. I made sure Bea had been nursed and had solids. I used the bathroom, I fed myself, I dressed nicely, I packed my stroller. (Sure these sounds like basic things, but with baby HJ I was always in scramble/reactive mode.) 

And so? I actually found myself smiling as we walked out of the mall later that morning. I'd had fun, yo! It was a sunny day and Bea was a happy clam and I was holding a holiday coffee cup. I'd done my errand, a little window shopping, got a Starbucks, walked a bit for exercise, and enjoyed the ooohingaahing over my cute nunnerson in the pink booties. Then...left! 

Who knew, 28-year-old me? Limits! They're a thing.