Having three kids, one of whom has Down syndrome, with busy schedules, I often hear things like “Wow!  I don’t know how you do it!” and “You look frazzled!” and even “You just need to relax!”.

I usually blow off these comments, with a smile or laugh, and keep chugging through the chaos.  I mean, I really don’t know how I do it, I am frazzled, and if I knew how to relax, I totally would.  It’s just not that easy.  If it’s not one thing, it’s another.  Right now, we’re still battling the transition issues that Alex experiences every time there is a change; once (if?) we get settled, it will be time for something new to start, and everything will fall apart again.  Sleep patterns are inconsistent, which throws behaviors for an awful loop, and we never know when the next meltdown will occur.

That’s just one small component of what we experience with one of the three kids.  We won’t even talk about the behaviors that the little one tries to get away with (apparently, he is trying to take advantage of my frazzled state to try and get one by), my disaster zone of my house, or the fact that I haven’t found time to hit the gym in nearly a month.

It all just totally hit me, though.  I am ready to admit it:  I am overwhelmed.  I am tired of all the battles we fight to advocate for our kids.  I get ridiculously jealous when I hear of other families, with kids of comparable ages, doing fun things around the city or on vacation, because it is just so difficult for us to pull off the same type of outing/travels and we usually just don’t even try to do so anymore.  I want a tidy, organized house, where I don’t lose at least three different things a day because I am so distracted by everything else that is going on.

I think the answer to “How do you do it all?” is this: I can’t stop to think about it.  I just do it, or face the possibility of sitting around, freaking out about it.  For now, the end result is me looking frazzled, or tense; soon, I hope to figure all that out, or at least start making small steps to being more organized and relaxed. But, as long as it all gets done (or a majority of it, anyway; I have doubts that this house will ever be as clean as I dream it could be!), I can’t really worry about how we get to that end point.

Right?