ON PARENTING: It took ONE SENTENCE from my son to change EVERYTHING:

When my first 2 children were young I juggled 2 jobs with part time hours. I scheduled my shifts around my husband at the time. He worked hard, and was gone alot sometimes 60 hours a week. I only worked 1-2 shifts through the week and weekends to accommodate his schedule. I took alot of flack from people who believed I should quit, that a woman’s place was in the home, to raise her children.

The next 2 kids, I had 2 back surgeries and was diagnosed with a chronic physical illness with a mixed bag of anxiety and couldn’t work! Then I heard the complete opposite – Other women they worked full-time and still do it all and they had health problems and still managed. Why couldn’t I?

The message was clear – no matter what I did, it was always the wrong thing! And if others didn’t say it. I said it to myself. “Nothing I do will ever be ENOUGH.”

Being sick, removed me from outside work so I decided to make my children MY universe. Everything revolved around them. This was what I was here on earth to do, I thought.

And YES I LOVE BEING A MOM but let’s be honest – alot of the time IT SUCKS.

Snuggles and Sing-a-longs and bedtime stories quickly become replaced with karate or football or dance classes, and by bedtime they have their own routine… What now?

I wasn’t needed as much and my need to be needed – that need wasn’t being met either! ( READ THAT AGAIN)

And like a darn boomerang, everything I put out into the universe returned to me and NOT in a fancy positive manifestation way. It was a HOT MESS. I was negative, sarcastic, passive aggressive. I felt unappreciated and I’m going to be honest here – I RESENTED it! Yep I said it ( let the hate mail begin )

It felt like all the other Moms seemed so cool and composed and organized and so Pinteresty!

And here was me yelling out the door ” I love you. God bless you. Have a great day. I’ll miss you xoxoxo”. I’d close the door, go back into the kitchen look at the pile up of dishes and the sink, with left over pancake pieces mushed into thick goo of syrup still on the plates.. and I’d be pissed!!!

” WOW!!!!!! What am I the damn MAID? ” Full stop – I know you have said it too. I bet Mary said it. I bet Mother Teresa said it! BUT no other Mommas were saying it to each other.

So I would mutter under my breath about how THAT WAS IT. NO MORE. They would do it at 4 pm when they got home from school!

And within an hour I was scrapping them and slamming them into the dishwasher, being sure that every fork hit the other utensil. It had to be LOUD right? Even though no one was home but me and the dogs; who by the way, were always spawled out, in the dining room, watching me! Yep even that annoyed me. How dare the dogs just lie there and watch?

My then husband would come home from work, with his big smile, with all his stories, his partner’s stories and funny things to share about his day. I’d stand there with maple syrup from those damn plates; sticky – my faded leggings stuck to my thighs, one of his oversized work tees, hair in a pony tail on top of my head, with benzagel still on my PMS pimples from the night before, with vibrant shimnery lipstick drawn over my mouth, I had just threw on; when his truck entered the laneway..

“So Honey, How is everything here? Kids got off to school? Everything okay? ”

” YEP, fantastic. I’m going to go read for a bit.” READ – Code word for alone. I want to be alone. BUT I did NOT want to be alone. I wanted to scream and shout and let it all out, but instead I swallowed it like down like one of those torpedo capsule prenatal vitamins you are forced to take; it stuck in my throat. I felt ashamed!

Fast forward 10 years of zero self care and kind of hating myself. I slowly started to do little things for myself, like writing it all down. I stopped choking as much on my PERCEIVED failures and all the ” should haves” that will drive one crazy. ( Yep, full disclose – been there too – and more than once, which makes me a bit of an expert I suppose, but I digress ).. BUT it STILL feels a little selfish!

Well yesterday my 17 year old son said one sentence to me that changed EVERYTHING and it was this ” MOM I AM PROUD OF YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF.”

Say WHAT? You want me to do things for myself? And you are PROUD of me? Tears. Lots and lots of tears. But also JOY – that joy that is referred to as ” unspeakable and full of glory.” Let me tell ya : it’s very seldom, that I am speechless.

Moral of this story. That saying ” If Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” It’s true. Don’t wait till you are at rock bottom to start practicing self care.

Whether your child is 1 day old or 30 years old. Start TODAY. Do something for YOU. Something that lights your soul up and sets your heart on fire. Our children learn far more by our actions than they will even know by what we preach. Our lives are our lessons to them. Not our sermons.

We can’t tell them they to follow their dreams, if we aren’t willing to chase our own.

We can’t tell them to be themselves, when we wear a mask.

We can’t tell them to step out of darkness and into the light when we don’t even own our own flashlight.

We can’t tell them how beautiful they are and then criticize every inch of our own bodies.

We can’t tell them to tell the truth if we aren’t willing to speak it, out loud ourselves.

We can’t tell them that they we are a safe place to share feelings if we don’t admit we have them too.

We need to stop being hypocrites and BE HUMAN…

If you want to make your child PROUD today : Go do something for YOU.

Self Care isn’t something we keep in a box, just in case… It is the wave in the sea, that keeps returning to kiss the shoreline. It overflows with peace and joy and laughter and tears and hope and fear and it makes them want to dive in, because you have TAUGHT them how to swim, because you dared to get in the water.

Life is Messy Mommas. Stop trying to clean it up. It’s like the fall leaves. You can never rake them all. Go jump in those piles, get dirty, have fun, do something spontaneous.

Our children are watching, waiting for us to take that leap so that they can feel safe, to jump in too ❤