Vacation Woes

When the last couple weeks of the semester were oh so stressful and I had to make the effort to devote every second to studying, in my milliseconds of daydreaming I made mental checklists of the fabulous things I would do on my two-week Christmas break and had fantasies of getting things done, spending loads of quality time with DLO, and do extra special Christmas things like bake lots of cookies, cook lots of meals, and revel in family.  Cut to today where I spent over an hour trying to get DLO to take nap and I marveled at the wastefulness of a whole hour devoted to trying to get her to sleep so she wouldn't be a crazy wreck later.  I marveled at all the things I hadn't gotten done or even started, and contemplated how much of a failure I felt.  The house wasn't clean, no cookies were baked, no exercise was getting done, and the worst of it, I didn't even feel like I was getting quality time in with DLO. Trying to do things like cook and clean for guests meant I halfheartedly played with her while simultaneously tried to "get things done" and all those things (like cleaning) got messed again so quickly I hardly had time to appreciate it and all I was left with was frustration, exhaustion, and disappointment in loss of time with DLO.  It seems like if I want to get anything done, I sacrifice DLO time and half the time I can't get that thing done or done properly so I not only don't get anything accomplished but then don't spend time with DLO.  Its such a catch-22 and so frustrating.  I really wanted to catch up on all the things I put off with the craziness of school but trying to get those things done is like building a sand wall against the encroaching sea.  How in the world do stay-at-home mom's get anything done?  I feel like I have more fun with Lydia and appreciate her more when I'm in school because I make sure any moment with her then is truly focused on her.  When I'm home, I feel the expectation to accomplish "something" which means I don't spend as much time focused on her.  Gah, what a depressing post.  I'll have to work on writing again after a fun day with DLO and also use this as a reminder that if the most important thing to me is time with her, than I need to lower my expectations around everything else.