Pregnant and Exhausted

Five more weeks till little baby boy is born. You all know what challenges the last eight to ten weeks present: I'm huge, overheated, not sleeping, constantly in the bathroom, can't breathe with a little guy's feet in my ribs, and I am just sure Tums are the fifth food group.

God, in His wisdom and mercy, has provided me with a strong support group of moms whose brains I can borrow when in need, and last week was the time. The email I sent to nine friends who are homeschooling moms of four or more said:

OK, girls, I am T-I-R-E-D. And super unmotivated to supervise school right now. I want to put my feet up in the sunshine, get a tan, and read a book. I have been praying that the Lord would give me stamina and grace in these last six weeks of pregnancy, and He has been faithful, faithful. I am, however, a goner by 2 p.m.

So, here's where I need help. What have been the best things you've done or not done when needing to alter your days for a temporary reason? I am not really willing to scrap school right now because if I do so only to start up again after baby arrives, we'll be schooling all summer long and none of us wants to do THAT! We tend to do a few things in the summer, but we all look forward to a change of pace that includes swimming for several hours every day.

In exchange for your time, I invite you all to come swimming this summer. I'll plug in the blender and make some smoothies, and then we can all put our feet up in the sunshine, get a tan and read a book ;)

Well, thanks to such a faithful and fantastic group of friends, I'll be able to post their responses over the next few days. The first to respond was Cheryl:

I don't know what your homeschool days look like, so just throwing this

out there in an ignorant fashion.

Is it possible to do all the "hard" stuff that requires your one on one,

or serious "mom" time, early in the day and leave things like reading aloud

until later in the day? Maybe even move your circle time to that dreaded

2:00 hour? I'm trying to put myself in your shoes a bit and imagining

taking care of math, spelling, language arts and that sort of thing all

together in the morning while I was fresh, and then gathering everyone

around me on the couch, or outdoors in the sun (seems funny to say that on a

rainy day like today), or even piled on my bed for Bible time, singing

together, reading aloud, etc.

If that's not practical for you, how about dropping anything "extra"

from your day and just sticking to the absolute "musts". That would look

different for [the older ones] than it would for the younger ones. Of

course, they are more capable of working independently into the afternoon

and reporting to you, or Dad, later in the day or the next morning with

their work. So what if the little ones don't have school through May or

into June? I won't tell if you won't ;)

And you didn't ask for this, but this is me so here it comes

anyway... are you getting enough sleep at night? I know you're a bit of a

night owl, but perhaps you can try heading to bed an hour or so earlier for

the next few weeks. That might buy you an extra hour of activity into the

day. A well rested body labors and delivers more efficiently than an

exhausted one, too.

My babies, and I, never were harmed by a mid-afternoon caffeine boost

either. Iced tea, iced mocha, big ol' glass of Pepsi, whatever. Just

sayin'...

Praying for energy, stamina, wisdom and peace for you.

~Cher