Depressed and unmotivated

I need a kick in the butt. I'm tired from getting up in the middle of the night with the baby. She was sleeping through the night, but her schedule changes week to week, and lateley she's getting up to eat at 2 am. I'm depressed because my house is a mess and there are some jobs my kids can't do and that I just can't do one-handed (baby attached to hip 24/7). I don't have enough get-up-and-go to get out the door and do my jogging when Miss Priss finally goes down for her morning nap.

No, here I sit, in front of the computer, reading the morning news and checking my email to see if the registrar's office at the university knows who I am, yet.

I know what I need: a good night's sleep. A second cup of coffee in the morning is no replacement. But the schedule isn't something I have the luxury of setting, so I can't get what I need. If I can't get the sleep that I need, I suppose what I need after that is the willpower to get off my ass no matter how tired I am.

I used to be able to do this. At one point I had a 5 year old, a 3 and a half year old, and a one year old in the house, and I was wearing size 8's and jogging every morning. I had a beautifully clean house, I was teaching my kids to read, I was playing creatively with them all day long because we didn't have a television or a computer, and I was walking to the library, walking my daughter to and from school, walking to the commissary... and I was about a decade younger than I am now.

I feel for the women who put their time into developing their careers before having children in their late thirties or even later. I'm tired enough as it is with just ONE baby in the house at the moment. I think if I had to do everything I did in my early twenties now, I would want to just curl up and die.

Not that I don't still do plenty. I've worked damn hard to raise my kids and go to college at the same time, and I'll be going back to college this fall (pray God) and will be busier than ever. I still cook a homemade dinner every night, I still keep up with the laundry and the ironing, I still sew and do crafts with my kids; I just don't exercise anymore and I watch a lot of tv when the baby is being particulary clingy (and sometimes when she's not!)

I also won't give up my car and walk everywhere - we live in a much bigger town with much more traffic and no sidewalks. I won't take the baby out in a stroller knowing that we could easily be taken out by someone who is too busy talking on their cell-phone to pay attention to their surroundings while they are behind the wheel of a car. Jogging up and down the alley behind my house is challenge enough, and so far, I've only done that once in the last week since I resolved to get back into the shape I was before the last year kicked my butt (and pregnancy didn't help matters much, but I'm so very glad Miss Priss came to live with us!)