Seasons Change

I say it through gritted teeth as I hurry reluctant children through frosty air, juggling backpacks and a furious baby and my half-empty mug of lukewarm coffee. 

"Seasons change," I whisper softly in my sing-songy voice so Poppy doesn't hear the frustration and despair I'm feeling when she cannot settle and is still awake at 11:30p.m.

When I'm wiping yogurt out of Grady's lunchbox for the third time this week, or re-folding the laundry that Poppy discovered piled nicely waiting to be tucked into drawers and has strewn about the room, or speeding up the street to make it to the drugstore before it closes so I can grab a bag of diapers, it is my rallying cry. "SEASONS. CHANGE." 

I love my family more than anything but lately, I am not having much fun. I am irritated. I am annoyed. I am itching to feel like myself again, except I don't quite remember what that's supposed to feel like.  

I worry that I am wishing away time. That I'm constantly looking forward to the "what's next" and so I forget to enjoy the "right now." (Am I supposed to enjoy the right now if the right now includes blueberry diapers in November for the love?) It is a very weird place to be, both wishing time would stand still so I can enjoy it properly, and hurry up to a time when I'm actually enjoying myself. 

Parents who have survived babyhood: tell me it gets better.