January goes out with a bang

Piled deep beneath a snow storm, at least I can say that I survived January! It can be such a difficult month, post holidays, smack-dab in the middle of deep freezes blanketed in gray skies. And while a Canadian winter will stretch on right through February and most of March, somehow getting through January is the worst of it.

(A 10 day vacation down south always helps!)

I hope there is energy and happy days to come. My patience has been stretched thin these past weeks. The boost I expected from our holiday didn't last nearly as long as I expected or hoped it might. I am tiring of Benjamin's clingy stage. While I was prepared for it to come around 9 months and last until about a year old, we are six weeks past that and there is no end in sight. While some moments I can snuggle him up into my arms, or sing hymn after hymn to him in the evenings, his demands made known through shrill shrieking and his endless need to be carried hour after hour are wearing me down fast. I am in sore need of sunny, warm weather and to take my brood out into the shades of green. I foresee Spring picnics in the backyard and running the bases at an empty diamond and hiking over cricks and down rugged paths. I yearn to run at the park and up and over the playground. I hope this year, Benjamin will be old enough to want to run with the boys and I in the backyard and we can simply lounge out there for hours on end.

28 days of February. Lately I have found myself trying to look at time in short increments. Tonight, after losing my patience at dinnertime as Benjamin shrieked while I tried to eat, James suggested an early bedtime for the boys. Looking at the clock, I said aloud "45 minutes. Yes, I can make it 45 minutes without throwing a child into a snowbank." In the same light, I look at 28 days of February, with 2 notches already marked.

And somehow it seems that every time I purge my exhaustion into a written entry, things swing up. Perhaps tomorrow I will find some peace again.