Unorganized.

Have you ever heard about or taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder test?  It's a test that tells you your five biggest strengths as far as your personality and character. 

My #1 strength according to StrengthsFinder: Discipline. 

This is a brief summary of how the program describes my biggest "strength."

"Your world needs to be predictable. It needs to be ordered and planned. So you instinctively impose structure on your world. You set up routines. You focus on timelines and deadlines. You break long-term projects into a series of specific short-term plans, and you work through each plan diligently. You are not necessarily neat and clean, but you do need precision. Faced with the inherent messiness of life, you want to feel in control."

"Seriously, Mommy?"

Having a baby, especially the way we had a baby, has really challenged this "strength" of mine.  I wonder if I retook the test if discipline would even be one of my strengths.

Before Abby, I used to make a to do list every morning based on my goals for the day. These lists were organized by category - career, household, family, social, physical, personal development, and spiritual.  My goals for each day were supposed to work towards the bigger goals I had for what I wanted to accomplish each month.  Those monthly goals were (you guessed it) supposed to work toward my goals for the year.

(I think the StrengthsFinder test was pretty accurate.)

When I went into labor at 28 weeks pregnant, I still had 62 tasks left on my "before Abby" to do list - the color-coded list of all the tasks I wanted to get done before Abby's arrival. Many of the tasks on this list were more detailed.  For example, the "shopping" task was broken down into a tiered list of things that were necessary, things we really wanted, and things that would just be nice.  There was also a sub-category of the items I thought I could find really cheap on eBay.

This is kind of embarrassing.  But it's how I roll.  Or, rather, how I used to roll. 

My sweet baby turned my organized and planned life upside down.  I never thought I would go into labor at 28 weeks pregnant.  I never thought I'd have 62 things left to do on my "before Abby" to do list when I went into labor.  I didn't plan to spend the first month of being a mommy in the hospital visiting my baby.  I didn't plan on spending 3-4 hours a day pumping for over 4 months because my baby learned to eat from a bottle and wouldn't breastfeed efficiently.  For over 4 months I didn't make a single to do list.  

And I've learned that some things you just can't plan for.  Some things can't be organized.  And sometimes to do lists don't matter. 

Now that feeding Abby isn't taking up my entire day and she's sleeping a lot better at night, I'm slowly starting to make to do lists again.  But now they're called "[try] to do" lists.  Thanks, Abby, for teaching me to loosen up a bit. 

I've gone back and forth about how I want to organize this blog.  I've decided, for now, I'm not going to have any plan or structure to it.  I'm going to be willy-nilly and write whatever I feel like.  And instead of working on my "[try] to do" list for today... I'm going to go snuggle with my baby girl. Because now I'm not so disciplined. I'm unorganized.  I'm unplanned. And I'm loving it.