Girl, help! December
An informal diary
Girl, help!
December 28th, 2025
Girl, what on earth has life been this week? Oh, the holidays. Stress, anxiety, overwhelm, constantly feeling behind, grief for those no longer with us or in our lives, and then good times with people you love (if you are so lucky– and I am).
Amid all of this there have been many trials and tribulations and I do mean many.
It feels like 2025 is reluctant to give up its seedy little grasp on my life. As though the year itself wants not to be forgotten much like a troubled adult (who never grew up emotionally) it worries not whether the attention it gets and retains is positive or negative but solely that the attention is on them.
It’s working…I mean why look to 2026 when a mountain of issues has arisen in the nth hour?
I’m fighting for my sanity. It seems many of my loved ones are doing the same and as the adage says misery loves company (although I think it may be quite the character flaw) it is nice to know I am not alone.
But it’s odd because through all this chaos, uncertainty, these changes of plans– I still find myself incredibly grateful. Even absolutely overwhelmed by my own elation in these moments of my life (usually mundane) that sweep to rush in and sweep me off my feet.
The baby coos and my two oldest giggle and suddenly all the irritation of bureaucracy, politics, and temper tantrums wash away. Suddenly I am faced with the realization that these are the moments right here that matter most. That no matter how much there is ‘to do’ there will always be more. No matter what challenges I am facing, this second of bliss will not exacerbate them and if that were the case I’d have the discernment to act accordingly.
And even though my butt might hurt from the fall and my shoulders ache from carrying all this weight, if I had the chance to go back in time I wouldn’t change a single thing in my life. Because I am not smart enough to know how to avoid the butterfly effect and I want all the lessons I have learned and my babies and my fiancé and all my living relations right here right now.
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 22, 2025
Too many things are piling up and there’s so much rapid-fire change in my life right now – it’s really testing the limits of my ability to cope with stress. All that on top of this strange sort of out of body feeling that I have as this illness releases its final grip on me and I am just getting through it all moment by moment.
It’s all easier and so much more difficult to deal with having kids. In one way the stress of having three little people who rely on you for safety, security, entertainment, snuggles, and sustenance can really add to the pile.
But at the same time, those little giggles, silly conversations, baby coos, and deeply healing hugs really put things into perspective. It helps me remember to slow down, to take a moment to enjoy all of this. There is always going to be something or other to be stressed out about. And if I ran myself now like I did before I had children, I think I’d be the tightest wound spool of doubt, anxiety, anger, and self-deprecation.
Now I am run around by tiny tyrants who don’t even recognize the hilarity of their rejections, requests, and ever-changing desires. I learn so much from them about allowing yourself to be free. To cry when you need to cry and then to laugh and move on after you’ve had your release. Maybe I shouldn’t call them tiny tyrants but instead tiny teachers.
I’ve got four more Christmas gifts to make in the next day and a half which would be stressful but not as big of a concern if I didn’t have 10k words to write between today and tomorrow so I can get my assignment turned in before Christmas Eve when my little family will be having the best part of the holiday together at home. Not to mention the wrapping of the presents, the labeling, and making sure everything is stored somewhere the kids or cats can’t destroy them before its time.
Next year I am starting the gift making process by June at the latest. Alleviate some of that pressure and let myself have a little more fun with it. I have no idea what I was thinking when I started handmaking everyone’s gifts just a month before Christmas.
I don’t think I was thinking. I was more likely possessed by the spirit of some peppy artist who has been doing this for forty-five years and could easily paint a masterpiece in three days flat. She certainly doesn’t have kids and if she does, they were all taken care of by a nanny as she worked away in her private in-home studio.
It’s like I was blind to the time constraints of reality when my ambition ticks on and suddenly I act like every different facet of my personality has a set of spare hands to help me out, which is sadly not at all the case. I can’t say much of my patience either.
One gift– I nearly stabbed to death after a series of unfortunate events took place involving Modge Podge, hair, a fuzzy sweater, and some torn paper. Luckily, I did not commit the crime because looking at it about two hours later I realized, it wasn’t that bad after all. Go figure.
I’ve decided to marathon it. Tonight’s going to be like finals night. I will work on this assignment for my client and when I feel like I could not possibly write any more then I will sketch out what I need to paint on a canvas. Switching between creative tasks, especially when I have writer’s block, has been a major way I’ve found I can reinvigorate myself and return to the page much sooner.
I also intend to dye my hair somewhere in the late evening. Can’t fall asleep with dye in my hair. Can’t let my wet hair hit the pillow after a dye job without ruining my pillowcase and I can’t exactly blow dry my hair in the middle of the night with all three kids sleeping either. I’ll have plenty of water and a fruit plate to keep me company, right after this recycled pickle jar full of coffee and cream and a Krispy Kreme donut.
How much will I accomplish? Only time will tell.
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 17th-19th, 2025
Influenza has infiltrated the household. Fevers, chills, headaches, sore throats, aches and pains, runny noses and coughs. Oh my!
Holding on by a very tenuous thread.
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 16th, 2025
Today has been a rollercoaster of a day, but some type of rollercoaster that is mostly underground and has a few highs that peak above the surface. We all survived it though and that’s a blessing. I’m pretty sure that the two year old is the only one of us who went without a full meltdown today. She’s really coming out on top lately.
I can’t say the same for myself because today I took the prize for biggest meltdown. I’m talking tears, hyperventilating, stuttering– intermixed with moments of dissociative calm and ‘no I’m fine I’ll talk about it with my therapist at 2pm on Monday.’
Turns out, no matter how many times I try, you can’t quite schedule your emotions without a little bit of backlash. When I feel stress rising I need to sit myself down at my journal or in front of a mirror and say, ‘tell me about it.’ Maybe that will help me circumvent the whole choose your fighter affair of– will sharing my honest emotions (fighter 1) make me a massive burden and drain on everyone I love or (fighter 2) be the cause of massive emotional retribution that I’ll have to reconcile with later. Kind of fun right?
All that aside today was a good day. Even if simply for the fact that my fiance and I were able to have some much needed conversations and remember that we are a team, especially when things get hard, and that right now with the circumstances we are in it’s (hopefully) the hardest it’ll ever be. These conversations always remind me that through all the choices I’ve made in my life and the cards I was dealt before then, I’ve finally made a super good choice and things aren’t nearly as scary as they were in the past. A lesson I am sure I will have to learn over and over again before it finally sinks into this thick catastrophizing skull of mine.
Sadly, the boy is still sick which means he doesn’t get to see his MPS teachers for three weeks (winter break starts next week). We all look forward to those visits (and I really do because it’s that mid week panic cleaning that really elevates the status of the household) and his teams have been monumental in creating a sense of stability for him and fostering his development. Makes me want to shout from the rooftops “we need to pay our teachers more” and sometimes (okay often) I fantasize about becoming independently wealthy and being able to give back to the programs that have given so much to us already. I haven’t written that one off just yet.
I shed a lot of tears today and made no progress on the romance novel for my client. I did however get in lots of good snuggles, had some important conversations and realizations, and even finally got the fuzzy load of laundry (the bane of my existence lately) washed and dried and then some more laundry.
Anyway, I’ve got wine to sip and chapters to edit through. How else will the FMC learn that the MMC has secretly been a billionaire all along? I mean she knew he was rich but she didn’t know he had it like that. I’d be remiss not to complete the story as intended (I’d also be unpaid and that’s no bueno. It’s already only weighing in at 2 cents a word– I quite literally want every last penny.) Time to write.
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 15th, 2025
It’s a Christmas miracle! The upstairs neighbor texted our laundry group chat to let us know that the dryer sputtered its way back to life and we have confirmed that it has fully dried a load of laundry. The piles and piles of dirty burp rags and shirts that met a fate of the very same, commend her magic touch even if I have quite a bit more on my plate this evening than I initially thought. I’m kind of bored of the whining. Instead, I’ve decided it’s good to get things done.
Why did I make that shift so flawlessly? It’s certainly not at all related to the fact that the dryer is working again, and I will be able to wear my comfy pants this busy week ahead. Certainly not that.
Appointments, appointments, appointments, home visits from the wonderful MPS teachers, and of course a potential four-hour fiasco with the lead testers from the health department threaten to throw all my work and Christmas gift progress off course. It’s all important and necessary though.
We need to make sure the little breech baby’s hips are still progressing positively otherwise the poor baby girl might have to wear the dreaded Velcro harness and then there’s my sons lead situation, so fingers crossed we find the source Friday and it’s a simple enough fix because the increase in my sons lead levels this year has been super no bueno. The middle child is doing alright although she does need a bang trim and that is not usually the simplest of tasks.
Where are the for-hire mercenaries when you need them?
A small update on the phone situation is that the accessibility mode I switched my phone into was much beloved by me — UNTIL my fiancé sent me some cute photos of the kids and I realized I was incapable of saving photos.
Wah, wah, wah.
So instead, I did a massive purge of my phone apps and removed needed apps but not for daily use from the home screen. Now I’ve got a half page of apps and the rest in my app library. The thing about this is it requires a higher level of self-control and usually I’d say I’m not sure I can do that but eh, I’ve decided to mess around and believe in myself a little bit this time.
I’ve also been learning Spanish on my own since it’s become abundantly clear that my ability to register for classes only after January 9th is really going to limit my class selection and language classes have already been filled up for the past week and a half.
Every time I think about, I mean really think about, the fact that I’ve just had my third baby, I’m 32, I’ve got a wedding to start planning, and I’ve decided to go back to school to get my bachelor’s degree I get a little wobbly in my knees. But I’ve really been taking a lot of inspiration from my obsessive motivational speaker days.
I keep hearing Les Brown in my head, ‘Life has no limitations except for the ones you make.’
I also keep hearing him say, ‘You gotta be hungry!’ But considering the excessive weight gain after my last two pregnancies I don’t think that voice is going to get me where I want to be.
That’s a whole other story, really one I don’t really have the time to ponder tonight because this entire diary entry has been one big drawn-out distraction to keep me from writing the last 500 words of my 3k goal for the secret billionaire small town romance my client has me working on.
Alas, I must return to the world of writing that attempts to pay my bills.
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 14th, 2025
Yesterday the four year old had a bad fever. He never naps unless he’s not feeling well and yesterday was ‘nap and children’s acetaminophen’ city. Jarring. When the babies are sick I want to take all their pain and discomfort away. I often find myself thinking I’ll take the sickness just to make them better. And then I always get sick and they are running around like little energizer bunnies but I highly doubt that’s because of my bargains with God. I think that’s just how these things tend to go.
Wouldn’t it be funny (ironic not haha) if I was somehow cursing myself? You know I might be– a lot of folks would tell me I’m speaking illness over myself and not wellness. They might just be right, who knows. Maybe I ought to change the bargain to something like please let the babies heal and be well in no time getting stronger and stronger with each battle between germs and white blood cells.
Everyone is a little sick today but the fever has broken on the four year old and the rest of us haven’t gotten that part of whatever is going around (knock on wood). On the positive side, the best part about sick days are the snuggles— so many sweet sweet snuggles.
Even if a part of that snuggling leads to snot in my hair, neck, and honestly everywhere.
These are the glamorous parts of motherhood I find really funny after the fact even when it is vile and totally gag worthy. I will say I was unprepared for how different ‘gross outs’ become after having kids. I used to have a gag reflux that would make me throw up just by an overactive imagination and the mention of something icky. I feel like a fucking beast now— hardened to the throes of baby pukes, sticky poops, diarrhea, and snot.
Admittedly I’m not quite ready for the big kid pukes yet. I think that might still send me into a spiral.
But the thing is spiral or not the babes need me, so it’s easy from that perspective to put all my icks and fears aside and do what I’ve got to do. Like the time my daughter kept pointing to the corner of her room and saying ‘it’s hiding’ when my son was sobbing and I was trying to figure out what was wrong.
A part of me did not want to look but I did. I slowly turned my head horror-movie-style, rolled up my sleeves and thought to myself ‘alright maybe I’ve got to fight a demon tonight.’ And in my own way I did fight a demon and welcome in all that love and goodness and those who fought and still fight to protect us. And my son stopped crying and my daughter stopped pointing and they went to bed and I went to text everyone I know in the next room over about what happened – just in case. And that’s just how it is.
And do you want to know about another little something that is? Since the dryer is broken and everyone is sick there’s no going to do laundry at Mimi and Pop Pops. So I pick up the five-time-washed load and throw it about the house, hanging it from here and there. Anywhere I can really put it to dry only to find out that there’s fuzz, lots and lots of fuzz, on every last item.
Internally I’m screaming. Bashing my face into a wall. And back to burning it all and calling it a day. I’ve lost my damn mind and I’m sure now that I am absolutely about to beat the world record for most-rewashed-load-of-laundry and I hate it.
But I keep reminding myself about all of those good loving snuggles and that there’s no reason to stress about the laundry or my next deadline until the weekend is over. And that I shouldn’t stress about how the kids will probably be home from daycare tomorrow and my word count is much higher this week than usual, i’ve only got ten days left to finish everyone’s hand made (ambitious) Christmas gifts, and I’ve got some real beef with the way I’ve been managing my money but all that can wait until tomorrow.
Allotted stress times— ya know?
Maybe I can do it like the “I’ll start my diet on Monday” ambition and perpetually push the stress away until it’s really not relevant anymore. Wouldn’t that be something?
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 13th, 2025
Yesterday’s laundry saga turned out to be the least of my laundry worries. Can you imagine? You’re in luck, you don’t have to because after rewashing the paper tainted load three times I put my load in the dryer only to find out that the dryer has magically stopped working! Makes me feel like I was a little premature on the 6 feet from the edge dramatics after all.
How could I have known? I find it’s better not to let an opportunity pass you by simply because there could be a better way to expend those feelings later. There’re infinite feelings after all, right? I’m sure my therapist would say I have those. So then in this short amount of time I’ve decided I was not at all premature on the dramatics. In fact, there’s plenty more where that came from. (Phew!)
Will the dryer be saved by a good servicing or is it time for us to buy a new one? Only time will tell and I’m not sure I’ll be in love with the price tag either way. I’m already behind on all the bills. Why not add another tisket-a-tasket to my already overflowing basket this holiday season?
Also, I’ve been faced with my addiction to the distraction and dopamine my phone provides me by my own design. I turned my iPhone into a “dumb phone” through playing around with the accessibility settings and (drum roll please) I immediately hate it. I’ve already been without a few of the apps like Instagram and Facebook but now there is no App Store at the touch of my fingertips to download Instagram on a whim and delete it again three minutes later.
There are quite a few limitations I wasn’t emotionally prepared for. Most heart wrenching of all perhaps is saying goodbye to my YouTube app. All it could manage was to show me shorts and since I already have a time limit set on those and am actively trying to avoid doomscrolling it is bye-bye YouTube on my phone.
The thing is I’m already itching for more and yet; I hate that feeling. It’s embarrassing to come face to face with the dependency that I feel on having the world at my fingertips. My logical brain says– this is all good. It’s something to get used to, baby steps baby steps. And the emotional part of me is like BABY STEPS? IT’S ALL GONE.
But it’s not. I’ve still got maps, tasks, photos, the camera, google docs. MyChart, the daycare app, safari, and email. Typing all that out right now I realize that there’s obviously everything I need at my fingertips still. I’m not truly depriving myself of any necessities; I am just also not making it extremely easy to distract myself and get those mindless dopamine hits. If that’s what I want I’m going to have to get it the analogue way.
But how will I numb myself and check out? How will I fill my brain with constant input? Oh noooo — exactly what I wanted to avoid is now easily possible and here I am whining about it all. The good news is in trying times like these (deprivation from doomscrolling and endless consumption of digital content) I find myself reading more, making more art, reaching for my notebook and (gasp) thinking through issues and concepts that solutions have evaded me for far too long.
Let’s see how long this lasts. Will getting my time back and my intentionality outweigh the draw of ease and access? I indisputably want it to.
So begins the battle of wills.
Love,
Liliana
Girl, help!
December 12th, 2025
I’m falling asleep to art ideas I don’t have the means or skills to accomplish. I am a woman possessed by ideation. A woman possessed by too many could-s who is surrounded by the ghosts of too many unfinished projects.
Although I find myself asking lately, is that really such a bad thing?
Maybe not, maybe it’s a good thing, or maybe it’s some sign of late stage capitalism or something about attention spans or any number of reasons I could find to convince myself there is something wrong with me. But honestly girl, that’s all a little exhausting so we are going to go with it’s cool to have a lot of ideas instead.
Also I think I washed my first load of laundry today with a tag or something because everything is covered in fuzzy bits of paper and while I do consider setting it all on fire and being done with it, it seemed rather like a waste (besides it was all pretty wet anyway) so I decided to wash it again. A minor inconvenience that really made me feel like “I’m six feet from the edge and I’m thinking maybe six feet ain’t so bad after all.”
Okay it wasn’t that serious but being melodramatic about it all makes me feel better about the whole thing. Do you hear that, mom? I concede to the dramatics.
Love,
Liliana