I can’t be the only mom of littles that feels like the days are a marathon.

I get up at 5:30am and go to bed around 10pm. Most days are a blur of meals, diapers, work, and chores.

Breathing is a luxury.

Lots of evenings are spent catching up on stuff I couldn’t get to while the kids were awake.

Lately, I have been feeling kind of down on myself for not handling everything… Better. Better by who’s standards, I don’t know. The family is fed, there’s clean clothes, and no poop on the floor… (Not since the baby chicks were living in our living room in the spring of 2013, anyways). The business is paying the bills like it has for almost 4 years now.

I think I’m so used to being all about service with a smile, and lately the marathon has been making me feel like I’m hanging on to the daily routine by a thread. And then this happened:

That picture is a screencap of my phone’s voicemail. With unlistened to voicemails from my birthday.

I feel like a terrible friend these days to my out of town friends and family. And we have a lot of out of town friends and family.

I think about calling people all the time. And then I gotta figure out a free chunk of time to make it happen. Morning during breakfast? An ungodly hour on the west coast. A couple hours later when Californians are feeling more human, I’m already juggling kids and work in the office. Lunchtime here is work time there. After work here, still work time there. After work there, too late for the kids to say hi to their family. Before I know it, another day has passed.

I miss everyone, and I hope you all can understand. That I still heart my friends and family. That it is so difficult to come up for air right now.

But even on the hardest day, it’s all still one hundred billion percent worth the struggle.