When to Say When

For whatever reason, and I am venturing to say that I am not alone, I push myself until I hit a wall...fall down and regroup again.  Instead of learning from the falling down piece, I will admit that I have a tendency to do the same thing over and over leading me to the same result.  What is the definition of insanity?  The path there may look different each time but it usually contains a lot of yeses when I really want to say no...times when things I plan go completely wrong...and flying by the seat of my usually organized pants! 

This time around I hit the wall yesterday...hard.  I was sneaking off to a much need trip to the gym (after being snowed/iced in for 6 days) and I was just about to open the door with my family sleeping soundly when I hear...."Moooooom!  I peed my bed!"....Actually it was "Moooom!  I pooped my bed!" but our youngest thankfully mixes up her words and she really had just peed.  After cleaning her and her bed up and begging her to go back to sleep, my window to head to the gym had closed and our oldest promptly woke up 10 mins later!  After the whole morning routine, I found myself in the shower....crying.  It wasn't the fact that my daughter woke up and I couldn't go to the gym rather the mounting and never-ending to-do list in my head...the doctors appointments that are long overdue (I mean who wouldn't want to spend a personal day having a mammogram and visiting the OBGYN!?)...looking in the mirror and seeing roots that needed to be fixed months ago...Valentine's to be made...the long list of things to coordinate in order to spend the weekend teaching away from home...it goes on and on.  When I get to this point everything seems to be the straw to break the camel's back and unfortunately my family suffers. 

Yesterday as I drafted this post in my head it was less about having a brain dump and more about reflecting on how to NOT get to this point...seeing the signs of this wall/nutty coming and stopping it before I hit it.  I'm sure other people have this same issue but Moms seemed to have honed the skill of putting everything else before themselves.  Now I wouldn't say I never take time for myself, my hubby gives me lots of time to run all by myself and I'm blessed to have his understanding, but I'm awful at seeing the signs of stress piling up.  Reflecting back on my behavior the past few days, I realized that I not only needed to apologize to my family but that it isn't fair to them to let myself get to this point.  Stopping before I hit the wall not only benefits me but them as well.  If I want to be a good example for my girls, it not only needs to be of a strong mama but also one that takes care of herself.  I'm sure this will be a work in progress but at least I can start the bus in the right direction!

How do you deal with an accumulating to-do list?  How do you destress?