ElizabethEsther.com

Finding joy in the ordinary days

I'm writing this after a 14 1/2 hour shift. I didn't get paid for the work I did today. I just barely got a couple of potty breaks. I sweated. I supervised. And now, I stink.

Today, there was blood. I bandaged a smashed toe, a tweaked toe-nail. I wiped her tears, rocked her at my breast. I comforted, I cooked, I cried. I prayed for strength.

There was poop. Then again, there is always poop, rain or shine. But today it was sunny. On sunny days, they like to run naked like wild banshees. And I let them.

I lifted, carried, stacked, organized, cleaned. We ate. 

I argued with my husband about the proper tending of a tweaked toe-nail. He said Neosporin and Band-aid. I said antibacterial spray and a Band-aid.

We compromised. Except the Band-aid kept coming off, so. Maybe he was right.

We forgave each other and he made me laugh. I kissed him at least five times today.

I had a serious conversation with a child. Being honest means not exploiting loop-holes, son. He said he wants to be a lawyer. Figures. Still. Honesty. I'm serious, son. There will be serious consequences if I catch you lying again.

"Is inflating facts lying?" 

"Nice phrasing," I say. 

"Yes," says Dad, stepping in. "Be clear on your facts or else they're not facts."

Excellent job, Daddy!

"Gotcha," says son.

There was also a Choking Incident today. She popped a lid in her mouth. Started choking, chubby hands flying up to her mouth. Daddy scooped it out.

Another disaster averted.

But the school science project almost got ruined. It was melting to death on the front porch. I saved it.

Later, we tried to watch a movie together as a family. But it did not pass muster. I turned it off. Sorry, guys. Inappropriate content. Who rented this? DADDY.

"What?" he says. "I watched this movie when I was a kid!"

"My point exactly," I say.

"That's true," he grins. "Sorry, kids! Bedtime!"

Kisses, prayers and just one more drink of water?

And now, now I'm exhausted. It was a hard, long shift.

But it was a good day. A very good day, indeed.

[Many heartfelt thanks to our American veterans for their service. Their sacrifice provides the freedom and safety that allows me to have such beautifully ordinary days like today. Happy Memorial Day.]

Cultivating a kind, gentle tone of voice

I started praying a risky prayer a few weeks ago. I asked God to help me speak in a loving, gentle tone to my children. I've continued to pray this each day and let me say, if you wanna pray prayers like this--just prepare to have your heart broken. In a good way.

The first thing that happened was that I began really hearing myself. Do you know what I mean by that? I mean that for a very long time, I'd been sorta deaf to my own voice, to how it sounded in my interactions with my children.

But in the last few weeks, I've begun hearing my tone of voice again. At first, I only heard myself after the fact, after I'd snapped at someone or interrupted, cut someone short or blasted someone away with my dazzling wit and logic. Ha.

And then I began hearing my tone of voice parroted back to me in the voices of my children. I heard it in the way they spoke to each other and on one occasion, I heard it in the way one of the twins reprimanded her baby doll.

It was embarrassing, heartbreaking and totally, completely convicting. It also exposed the myriad excuses I've used to defend my harsh tone of voice. 

I began intentionally trying to speak kindly, gently and lovingly. Here was the big revelation: speaking kindly takes practice! Cultivating a kind, gentle tone of voice doesn't just happen. I used to comfort myself with the notion that the moms who spoke gently and kindly were born with that kind of voice. 

Now I'm not so sure. I think maybe they've had to work at it. Maybe it's a fine art that must be practiced and cultivated, disciplined and tended.

Here's another revelation: the test of a kind, gentle tone of voice comes when life is difficult.  I mean, anyone can use a kind, gentle voice when life is going smoothly and according to plan. But most of our life in a large family does not go smoothly. And it almost never goes according to plan!

So, what should I do? Wait until life gets easier or do the right thing even if it's hard?

Here's what I've started doing: when I'm irritated or tired, I try to pre-empt my harsh tone by sending up little SOS prayers to God for help. Usually it sounds like this: Lord, grant me grace right now, please. 

It's a simple little prayer but I've been surprised at how effective it is. It feels like a little pocket opening up in my mind giving me that extra ounce of patience I need in that exact moment, just enough to get me through the current ordeal.

And when I choose to speak kindly and gently, I feel an immediate sense of satisfaction. It's like take taking pride in a job well-done. It feels like I've ministered grace into the moment instead of chaos or worry, hurry or fear.

The funny thing is that before I had twins, I almost never raised my voice. I really tried to speak moderately and gently at all times. But since having the twins, it's like I've had to re-learn it all over again.

Or maybe it's just that BT (Before Twins), I could handle it all in my own strength and AT (After Twins), I realize I can't do it on my own. I'm dependent on the mercy and grace of God every single day. Scratch that. Every single minute.

Maybe there's no better place to be.

Do you struggle with using a kind, gentle tone of voice?

Do you have any practices/ideas for cultivating a kind, gentle tone?

I could use some helpful encouragement, so please SHARE!

 

Simple organizing tip from a mom of 5: CRIB TOY BOXES

During the Witching Hours (3pm-6pm), I have several strategies for survival. One of these includes giving the twins one hour of quiet play time in their cribs.

I'm a firm believer in teaching children to amuse themselves. I love playing with my kids, but I do not exist for their sole entertainment. And especially from 3pm-6pm, Mommy has serious work to do; ie. homework help, dinner prep, sports practice drop-offs, overseeing piano practice.

To help the twins amuse themselves, I've put together Crib Toy Boxes. These are smaller versions of their big tox box. Essentially, they're just plastic boxes filled with smallish, interesting toys and books, preferably ones they don't play with during the day. Here they are (next to a little show-off who insisted on getting in the picture, lol!):

I try to keep the Crib Toy Boxes up and out of reach until quiet play time. I freshen up the toy selection about once a week. Sometimes I keep "reserves" of old toys hidden from view. I've discovered that if you hide old toys for awhile, when you bring them out again the kids are like: WOO-HOO! NEW TOYS!

I like to spy on the twins and see what they're doing with their Crib Toy Boxes. They invent some pretty cute games. Jorie likes to turn hers upside down, cover it with a blankie and pretend it's a table for tea. Jossie likes to use her box as a little reading chair. She sits on it (or in it) and "reads" her books. 

[WARNING: if your kid is a climber, the boxes can be used as step-stools for escaping her crib. You might need to modify your own set-up accordingly. A Crib Toy Bag, maybe?]

When quiet play time is over, I scoop the toys back into the boxes and stick them up on a closet shelf. For me, it's important to check the boxes each day and make sure nothing random or unsafe has somehow found its way in there (sometimes my older kids unwittingly give the little kids unsafe toys).

I want to assure you that the twins enjoy their quiet play time. It's not time-out or punishment and they never mistake it as such.

It's a positive, peaceful experience. Sometimes I turn on classical music and they have their blankies so they can choose to lay down and relax. I keep the baby monitor on so I can listen in on their playtime. I just love hearing their adorable little conversations and made-up songs.

However, I do fetch them after one hour. Leaving them alone for too long breeds upset feelings and I want them to associate their cribs with rest and peaceful play--not feelings of rejection. Every child has a different time limit and we've had to work up to the one hour time-slot (we started at 6 months with about 15 minutes quiet play).

Crib Toy Boxes and quiet playtime are a lifesaver for this busy mama!

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Vignettes of happiness

Men. And their Grills.

We sold a few things on Craigs List in order to buy an outdoor grill. After picking it up from Costco, Matt brought it home to assemble it. Lesson 1: never buy a grill you have to assemble yourself. Turns out the thing had a huge dent on the side of it--a flaw Matt discovered after having spent an hour trying to put it together. 

He schlepped it back to the store, stood in the returns line, explained the problem, got his money back and this time, bought a pre-assembled grill. After this estimated one hour project had turned into a half-day marathon, the marinated steak was finally sizzling on the hot grill and Matt was smiling,

"Grilling makes me feel like a man," he sighed contentedly.

Seeing him so happy made me happy, too.

Hoarder v. Purger

It's not that I'm trying to be a pack-rat, it's just that I can foresee all kinds of possible future uses for that battered, old, half-broken infant car-seat. Also, it has sentimental value.

I'm the hoarder, he's the purger. I make piles (and I know exactly what's in each pile!) and he obliterates my piles. I say it's a loose organizational system. He says it's clutter.

Last weekend, Matt decided it was time to clear out the garage again. "It's reached a saturation point," he said. I knew what that meant. PURGE-TIME. I couldn't watch so I went inside and baked cookies.

By the time he was done, most of the baby twin gear was ready to be donated or sold. My uterus started having a panic attack. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? I WAS GOING TO USE THAT STUFF!

I almost started gnawing on my clenched knuckles. 

But a day later, when I went into the garage I was like: Oh, this is nice. I can actually walk through here without risking my life.

I had to admit that a spiffy, tidy garage does make a body feel happy.

So, I text'd him. Garage looks nice. Thanks for cleaning it out.

My Little Humanitarian.

"Mom, I want to give a speech about sponsoring a child through Compassion," Jewel informed me this week. "Can you help me write it?"

I was sorta stunned. And thrilled. As part of the leadership team at her school, Jewel explained that she wanted to inspire other kids by sharing our family's experience with sponsoring a child from El Salvador.

Last November we sponsored a child in El Salvador. We chose a 12 year old boy because we heard that older boys often don't get sponsors. We've received several letters from our boy and all my kids love it.

So, I helped Jewel work out some salient points for her speech. Seeing her excitement and commitment to this endeavor made me so happy.

She wants to make this world a better place and that makes this Mama feel happy. And hopeful.

[reminder: please join me this Saturday for THE SATURDAY EVENING BLOG POST! we'll be featuring our favorite posts from March and April. it's a great way to meet new blog-friends!]

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in the meantime, consider subscribing to my blog? it would make me happy! :)  

Betraying the ideal of Perfect Christian Family

Yesterday the doctor told me all my tests were clear. I have a clean bill of health. 

My first thought was: thank you, Lord.

My second thought was: Oh, God. Please no.

I know it might sound strange, but I wanted IT, whatever IT is, to be something identifiable, something diagnosable. That is, something medically wrong. A vitamin deficiency, some kind of disease.

Not "just" exhaustion. Not actual depression.

That's too humiliating. And also, according to the voices of my past, not real. Exhaustion and depression aren't real problems--they're symptoms of weak faith, of failure to trust God.

In radical fundamentalism (and perhaps in many Christian groups), a Christian mother suffering under the weight of physical and mental exhaustion is an embarrassment. She has sort of betrayed the cause. She's bringing shame to the image of the Ideal Christian Family. 

This is why I would rather my physical problems be anything other than "just" exhaustion. 

But that's what this is. And part of this whole process is about learning to accept what is. It's also about honesty, truth and laying aside prideful pretense.

I don't need to pretend anymore. I used to live by formulas and idealism. I thought that if I just did x,y and z, I would be guaranteed a certain result. I bought the lie of Perfect Motherhood because I wanted it to be true.

A friend told me that when people are confronted with the cracks in their formulas, either they try to cover it up with more formulas or they come clean.

I'm not going to cover my brokenness up with more formulas.

This is me, coming clean.

This is me exhausted. This is me depressed.

This is me willing to do whatever it takes to get better.

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A physical breakdown is preventable

It happened so fast. One minute she was bouncing happily in the shallow end of the pool, and suddenly, she went under. She flailed and floundered, unable to roll herself over and put her feet down. I called to the lifeguard, but he didn't hear me. So, I went in. Fully clothed.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her out, setting her on the side of the pool while she sputtered and coughed.

A moment later, the owner of the swim school came over. "She alright?"

"Yeah. Just a little startled, I think."

"I'm glad you were watching her," he said. "Now you know why we ask parents to supervise in addition to the lifeguard."

He then told me that he's writing an article about water safety because yet another toddler drowned last week--in our city. Apparently, there was no fence around the family pool.

"It's not enough to have swim lessons," he said. "Drowning is preventable. But you have to take multiple precautions."

I nodded my head in agreement. Multiple precautions: pool fence, lessons, supervision. 

Sometimes it's easy to overlook the danger, to rely on just one safety precaution. I do this in other areas of my life, too. I comfort myself by thinking I've got it all under control. But the reality is: things can go badly very quickly. It's why I no longer text while driving. It's also why I'm enforcing multiple precautions to insure I don't go back to teetering near a breakdown.

Just like drowning is preventable, having a physical breakdown is preventable, too. 

It's dawning on me that in many ways, I got myself into this mess by taking on too many responsibilities. Why did I think I could manage two boys in baseball, one girl in twice a week ballet, piano lessons, homework, meals, cleaning and maybe write a book all by myself?

I know why I did it: because I was a full-blown perfectionist striving to be the happy, got-it-all-together Christian mother. And I had too much spiritual pride to admit I couldn't do it all.

Because if I admitted that I was drowning, I feared I would bring shame to Christ. I thought it was more holy to be "burned out in the service of Christ" than to take care of my physical body.

So, I drove myself onward. I skimped sleep, ate poorly, didn't exercise, volunteered for everything, kept a spotless house.

I started drowning.

The strange part is now that I've got the twins in part-time daycare, I'm falling back into my old routine. Instead of taking time to rest, I'm filling up my time with errands and to-do lists! Go to the library, pick up the dry cleaning, run to the grocery store.

It's almost like I don't know how to take care of myself. I don't know how to slow down. In fact, I feel guilty for using daycare time to take a break. Because, you know, I want to be productive!

HELLO, ELIZABETH! STOP THE INSANITY OR YOU WILL DROWN AGAIN!

So, I'm forcing myself to schedule down-time. It's not enough to have help, I have to write Take a Break in my schedule: meet a friend for coffee, read a book, take a nap.

Multiple precautions.

Because I don't want to drown again.

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[wanna take a break with me? get EE more easily here:] 

Death of a SuperMom

 I don't know what happened between my mother's generation and mine but I'd just like to say: I'm getting off this train. Because if I don't, I'm gonna get run over.

Somewhere along the line--say early 90's?--it wasn't enough to just be a regular at-home mom. I'm not going to point fingers, but I knew something had drastically changed when I read a mom newsletter about being a Professional Mom. It was written by high-powered career women who'd decided to quit their jobs and bring all their corporate, organizational experience home.

Honestly, part of me really wishes they'd just kept their day jobs. Because holy hell, now I can't even watch Oprah without feeling guilty for not creating spreadsheets for my kids' schedules instead.

It used to be that kids came home from school and were let to run around the neighborhood until the streetlights came on. My mom used to let me run free and I didn't check in with her for hours.

I mean, I get it. We have stalkers and child molesters and all kinds of freaky pedophiles out there--so we have to be careful. But honestly? That's not the real reason moms my age can't catch a break.

The real reason is that at-home moms feel like they have to be Professional Moms. Which means: shuttling their kid to every manner of music lesson, math tutor, language lessons, cooking classes, horse-riding, soccer, baseball, cotillion.

A Professional Mom is always on. This is how she proves her worth. She oversees and manages every single second of her child's life. Because if she doesn't, her kid might not...what? Be successful.

And nothing scares the Professional Mom more than her kid going to junior college. Or (gasp!) taking some time off school to back pack through Europe.

Or, God forbid, live.their.own.life.

[Sidebar: do Ivy League schools charge so much money simply because they can? Simply because they know there are Professional Moms out here busting their asses to make sure their kid gets a 1600 on the SAT?]

So, she sits with her kid and does homework every night (to make sure she's academically competitive), she shuttles her kid around to every conceivable extra-curricular activity (to make sure she's well-rounded) and devotes every spare moment of her waking hours to insuring her child has the competitive edge.

I like to call this craziness: bottom-line parenting. Everything the Professional Mom does is driven by the bottom-line--how will this profit my kid?

The catch is that this creates an extraordinary load of guilt. The Professional Mom lives in abject terror of   failure. She doesn't want to "regret" the "little time" she has with her kids. 

This is made worse in Christian circles where a working mother is almost on par with a hooker. Actually, it's worse. A Christian woman can feel compassion for a hooker. But a working mother? Well, tsk, tsk. Clearly, her PRIORITIES are all wrong. HASN'T SHE READ TITUS 2????

So, here's my question: is it really POSSIBLE to regret-proof your life? I doubt it. That's like saying it's possible to live a mistake-free life. 

I'm fully convinced that my kids will grow up to resent something about what I did/didn't do. I imagine them sitting in therapy talking about how their mother forgot to pick them up from school and how that negatively affected their ability to form lasting personal relationships. NEVERMIND THAT I STAYED HOME WITH THEM ALL THOSE YEARS.

I'm not advocating a wholesale dumpage of kids into full-time daycare. I'm just saying that the "ideal" of the at-home mother is not all it's chalked up to be.

My mom worked full-time. I was her first priority, but I was not the sole source of her life and happiness. She had a life. And I got to be part of it. 

Yeah, there was a time when I resented the fact that she never baked homemade cookies for me. But I've grown up and am so grateful that my mother is completely happy in her own life with her own friends and her own colleagues. I like it that way. I admire her for it.

Look, maybe it's possible to be a Professional Mom when all you've got is one kid. But I don't. I've got five. There's just no way I'm gonna be able to provide that level of Professional Parenting to all five of my kiddos.

What I do know is that I love them and we have a rollicking good time together. The best gift I ever gave my kids was the gift of their siblings, not me as their Professional Mom.

Now, give me a pack of Mint Milanos and let me watch my Oprah in peace.

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Finding Mary

It seems appropriate that I'm waking up frightened in the dead of night, in the darkness. This is all part of it--the night terrors, the haunting dreams, the blazing awake with pounding pulse and scattered tears.

My flailing and crying out in my sleep awakens Matt. He pats me gently until I settle, until my breathing slows. 

Sometimes I find myself standing in the middle of the room, battling off invisible marauders. I'm sleep-walking. Or sleep-fighting.

Come back to bed, he says. Everything is OK.

Is it?

And even now, in the silence, I feel like apologizing.

I'm sorry. God help me, I'm so sorry. 

I feel like I've let him down. My near collapse has meant more work for him. He comes home from work and instead of resting he must wash dishes, fold laundry, bathe the twins. 

When one spouse goes down, the other has to pick up the slack. It's not fair to him. This isn't what he signed up for. Or is it? Did he imagine that in sickness and in health might actually mean picking up the broken pieces of his wife and putting her back together again?

Maybe it's not fair. But then again, true love never is.

Love means sacrifice he says. And for all the guilt I'm feeling, there's also a deep welling of ardor, of gratitude. He shows me what love is.

I think he knows that my breakdown has been building for some time. You can only ignore the warning signs for so long. Back when I was living under the impossibly heavy yoke of an abusive church, I'd leaked pain onto him more than once. I tried to keep it buttoned up tight. 

And then I'd fall into him, expecting him to catch. He couldn't. It wasn't fair to expect that of him.

I can't be God for you, he said.

He was right, of course. But the only God I knew was angry and terrifying. I didn't know where to turn. This was long before I met Mother Mary. So, I turned inward and scraped at literal flesh.

Until one day I was free.

I began to rebuild. It was painstakingly slow work, peeling away one layer only to reveal yet another. 

Still, I've made progress.

But when I wake, startled, in the dead of night--I feel like I'm back to square one.

It sucks to be back here.

I grope through darkness, pull covers over my head. My knees are up to my chin. 

I fumble toward her---

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for me....

I close my eyes and the sheets are the folds of her gown. I rest my head in her lap.

I imagine her caressing my hair and slowly, I drift back to sleep. I know she's praying for me.

The next morning, for the first time in a very long time---I awake fresh. Clean. Clothed in my right mind.

Encouraging and inspiring you! (aka making you feel like crap)

"And then I look at you and think: what do I have to complain about? Look at Elizabeth! She has five kids! If she can do it with five kids, I can do it with two!"

Since I started being honest with my struggles these past few weeks, several of you have felt brave enough to tell me this. I'm so glad you said it. Because you wanna know the truth?

I lived in fear for most of those years because whenever someone compared themselves to me I would think: if they only KNEW the truth about how much I struggled! 

For so much of my mothering journey I've been desperately trying to PROVE myself. I would read the blogs of other moms who "seemed" to have it all together. They never once wrote about how difficult it was to maintain their sanity. Instead, every single post was written as an "encouragement" and finished off with a delectable picture of a made-from-scratch casserole.

Now, look. There is nothing wrong with that. The problem was me. The problem was that I couldn't read those blogs without comparing myself to them and then feeling like crap afterwards because I was never gonna measure up.

The worst thing is that I would read those posts and then try to emulate them myself. I would read the blog of some awesome organic-cooking-mom and then feel the need to cook like that for my family. And so I would dash off and create little funny faces with vegetables. Lame.

Or I got all excited about losing weight and posted this hot, sexy picture of myself all slimmed down and guess what? I unintentionally made you feel like crap because you don't look that way.

I was doing to you what other SuperMom bloggers did to me: make you feel like a failure because I presented an image of my own perfection. With a lace doily on top.

Here's the deal: I think a lot of these SuperMom types feel trapped, too. They've worked themselves into a corner--or maybe written and posted themselves into a corner--and they don't feel free to admit their struggles and/or depression. I'm not angry at them, I just feel like giving them permission to loosen their corsets, take off the SuperMom crown and admit: yeah, we LOVE wearing sweat pants.

Yes, there is something to be said for trying our best and working hard toward an excellent standard (ie. NOT being flippant about borderline negligence). But look, negligence is not my area of weakness. My problem is giving myself permission to rest.

I'm a full-blown perfectionist and my perfectionism is exacerbated by reading those blogs, rifling through those cookbooks, buying those chef doo-dads, drooling over those designer homes, etc. Especially when their mistakes are something like: oopsy, daisy, I added just a wee bit too much salt to my homemade, hand-rolled pasta!

I can't read that stuff without feeling like a total loser. Dude, my mistakes are like ruining the (store-bought) pasta altogether because I got distracted by a hangnail and the pasta overcooked and boiled over and I burned the (canned) sauce and WHO WANTS McDONALD'S?

I realize this is entirely my problem. Some people can read that stuff and be all inspired and encouraged. I can't.

Know what inspires me? Grim, gritty memoirs like Mary Karr's "Lit." Her life was such a freaking mess that she couldn't even try to make it sound pretty. In an odd sort of way, her story gives me more hope than all the "ladies/maidens of virtue" blogs, books, etc.

So, here's my pledge to you: no more perfectionism from me. No more pretending to have it all together--or even unintentionally portraying that. No more PROVING that I'm anything other than struggling through it just like you.

Deal?

Layers upon layers of great expectations

I made my bed today. This, friends, is noteworthy. I also took a walk. Outside. On an old trail I used to frequent. I breathed fresh air, felt the sunshine on my skin and realized it had been three years since I took a walk by myself on that trail.

Again, noteworthy.

Here are some thoughts that came running through my head and I'm unloading them here before I go do afternoon carpool (forgive the half-coherent jumble that follows).

It's hard enough to be a good mother. I feel like it's near impossible to be a good, Christian mother.

And yet, that is precisely what I expect myself to be. It's also what other Christians expect of me--(or so I believed while living inside a high-demand Christian group).

Turns out, I have piled layer after layer upon myself. Layers of expectations, standards, goals. No wonder I'm burned out?!

Today I'm a wall of peeling paint, letting all the old layers come off. I'm stripping them down, trying to find what lies beneath. Here I am starting from childhood up:

1. Pastor's grand-daughter: we called it "holding up the testimony." What this really meant was: make Papa look good. The good? I have a driving determination to perform well. The bad? I struggle with feeling loved for just being me.
2. Missionary: as Christians, we were taught to be outward focused, to be ready "at any minute" to give reason for the hope within us. The good? I learned how to place others' needs before my own. The bad? I struggle with guilt for taking care of myself.
3. Young wife: a "good, Christian wife" was obedient and submissive. Our church took this to an extreme. Wives were discouraged from ever saying "no" to their husbands. For any reason. The good? I learned to use respectful speech. The bad? I have difficulty setting healthy boundaries in personal relationships.
4. Christian mother: a Christian mother "trains her children in the way they should go." I have written about the abusive methods I witnessed. The good? I've learned other ways of raising responsible, well-behaved children. The bad? When they fail, I take that as a reflection of my poor parenting.
5. Involved mother: I got trapped in the compare/contrast mode where I convinced myself that if only I cooked more organic food, read aloud more often, taught Sunday school, memorized verses, volunteered more, decorated for every holiday and homeschooled, I could achieve SuperMom status (and guarantee my children's success). The good? I am an involved mother. The bad? I over-commit and feel like a collosal failure most of the time.

One thing that I've ignored for a very long time (because it didn't fit the expectations) is that I'm not a naturally gifted mother. I really, really wanted to be. But it's more like I'm a hunting dog who has been retro-fitted to be a lap dog.

Which is to say, a Literature professor who has been retro-fitted to be an at-home mom.

I mean, it works. I do a good job. But damn, most days that shoe just don't fit. It goes all wonky.

See, I wasn't raised to believe I could be anything other than an at-home mom. Working outside the home was borderline sinful, dangerously close to being the F-word (feminist) blah, blah, blah. 

Still, I wouldn't change being an at-home mom. At least, not while my sweeties are young. I do truly love it and cherish the time I've spent with them.

But is it OK to admit that I love it and that I also struggle with it? It never comes easily. That every day right now is a struggle? That sometimes it's moment-by-moment?

And then sometimes there are moments of sheer--I don't know--unmitigated, total, utter bliss? Like: yes, yes, this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing! 

So, I'm hanging on. Peeling back the layers. Looking for the sunshine to break through again.

I know it will.

thanks to everyone for all the supportive, wonderful, I-get-you comments yesterday. I was overwhelmed with tears of gratitude. *mwah!*

Now tell me, do you have layers of obligation/expectation you've piled on yourself?
What are they? How do you deal with them?
(feel free to comment anonymously if needed)