If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches - Rainer M. Rilke

My daily life is far from poor. Any woman pregnant with number two can confirm that.

My son is sleeping and I was looking for something at The Clearing Space to take my mind off daily stress and hormones. This post triggered below story.

Today I was sitting on the couch having a bowl of cereal when my son absolutely insisted on sitting on my lap. Of course he was at the same time pulling the bowl out of my hand. Imagine cereal, (cold!) milk and fruit all over me, my son and the couch. What do you do first? Clean yourself? your son? the couch? As I got up, all the cereal that was glued to me by the milk fell to the floor and couch making the mess territory even bigger.

That's when I couldn't handle it anymore. Being pregnant, my tolerance level is lowered by silly things called hormones. And I do get irritated and discouraged a lot easier. I would have gladly handed the whole picture over to my other half (which is what I sometimes do lately when I can't seem to manage anymore), but he was at work. My son immediately felt that something was up and my tears only made him queasy. So I swallowed my tears and started undressing (no use in taking the mess elsewhere in around house) myself and son quickly (we are in the middle of works for an extension of our house and curtains have not yet been delivered...) and dashed into the bedroom to put on my sweat suit.

I grabbed the vacuum cleaner (when you're in the middle of construction works, it's never far away) and started by vacuuming all the cereal bits from couch, floor and clothing. My son loves the vacuum cleaner and I handed it to him to complete the task (well...keep him busy) and started cleaning the milk and fruit stains from couch and floor. You have to imagine me doing this with a big belly that at this point just gets in the way of EVERYthing.

OK. Done. It took me about 20 minutes (pregnant women are slower at everything) and I was exhausted afterwards. Of course, my son then did not want to let go of the vacum cleaner and threw a fit :-) But I had already spilled all my hormones and energy and couldn't be bothered by that. I put him to bed for his afternoon nap which he accepted, if under protest.

Now I feel calm again. I know this or similar events happen to all of us every day. It wasn't even bad as noone got hurt. I just thought it interesting how easy we can become overwhelmed by the small things that happen to us (even when we're not pregnant). I guess if it weren't for my son, I'd have given into a crying fit, conquered. But I didn't and I am proud of that.

Daily life is full of little victories and satisfactions :-)