Tag: family

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Parenting

A Hard Refresh (Ctrl F5)

When working, I frequently need something published on our website and sometimes it’s not always visible right away – that’s when the web team tells me to do a hard refresh or Ctrl F5 to see my article all fresh and new.

That term has been stuck in my mind lately as I’ve felt I’ve needed a hard refresh – or reset as I also call it.

As a mom of littles, solo breaks are few and far between. Sure, I get out and have dinner with friends once a month or so, try and get to the gym and of course, my kids are at school/daycare (now summer camp and daycare) while I’m working but lately I’ve have just been drained. Needing a break. Snappy with people and my kids(which I hate). Even my brain seemed fried.

I’m a girl who craves routines. Needs them. And over the last month, routine was hard to come by – fortunately something I knew would happen – but hard nonetheless.

Here was our May: My husband always has a work conference he has to go to in May – that turned into 5 days away. Then he came back (on Mother’s Day) and we leapt into end of the year activities for our 1st grader, gymnastics shows for both girls and preparing for vacation. We went on a nice vacation – again, no routine but hey that’s vacation and came back to a basement that had gotten water into it due to a sump pump power failure (yay). My 6 year old was home the week we got back from vacation due to the fact that her school is done very early and summer camps don’t start til the second week of June. So we were juggling that, working and our basement issue. This week she started camp but my 3 year old was off for two days as their daycare transitioned classrooms. And at work, we had a huge computer issue resulting in me having no work computer the last week.

This is, of course, in addition to all the “normal” stuff – taking care of the dog, getting the meals, carpooling to things, hearing “Mom! mom! Mom!”, breaking up sibling fights, laundry…the list goes on. By the way – I’ve been trying to teach my girls a new word called “Dad” who is usually right with them while they are yelling my name. Think it will work?

Oh – and did I mention my in-laws are visiting? 🥴🫠

I needed a hard refresh. So I took advantage of the in-laws visiting. I figured they could help my husband out a little so I went on a getaway. To breathe. To sleep. To reboot and recharge.

Do I feel a little guilty? A tiny bit. It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. Sometimes I feel like I should be around my kids 24/7. Like I don’t deserve breaks or don’t deserve to put myself first. Which is silly because everyone needs breaks and I want to show my girls it’s ok too. And yes it is Father’s Day weekend but I’ll be back for that and he’s spending one on one time with his kids! Which I did on my Mother’s Day weekend when he was away. And the in-laws? I saw them Wednesday and Thursday. Check. Check. Check.

I’m happy I was able to do this for me. And while I keep having to remind myself it’s ok to do this, to not have to be there 24/7, I hope if you are reading this and seeking some sort of permission, here it is: GO. Do what YOU neeed to do for you. You don’t have to be everything to everyone 24/7.

I’ll be back at my regular “flight attendant” duties soon. And whilr parenting is never easy, I’ll at least have had a little hard refresh.

Dinner and drink without interruption!


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Uncategorized

That last day feel

You know what the worst part about vacation is?
Not the packing, not the “are we there yets?” from kids if you have them, not even the expense…

Nope. It’s the last day. You know when you still want to enjoy beach and pool time (or wherever you are) but also know that leaving awaits you. It’s such a melancholy day for me.

I am not a huge traveler – much more of a homebody but at the beginning of each summer we spend a week in Hilton Head Island, SC with my parents. I’ve been coming here since I was literally in utero, only missing a few years here and there. My parents are still thankfully healthy enough to travel down here for a few weeks and my husband and I are lucky enough to join them for a week with our little kids. And yes, for the record, I will acknowledge how lucky I am that I’m in my early forties and my parents still take me on vacation. It’s a familiar “home away from home” for someone who doesn’t like to travel and I’ve enjoyed having my girls do many of the same things I did growing up.

And then that last day comes. Maybe it would be better if we didn’t live 12 hours away and I didn’t have to play flight attendant for my kids as my husband drives. But that last day as I’m taking pictures, enjoying the beach and pool and trying to pack, the voice in my head screams “vacations over, time to go back to real life.” And honestly real life is fine – I’m ready to go back. I like work. I miss our dog like crazy. I miss our routine.

but…I also love all of us together. Being under the same roof as my parents. Not rushing around to school or extracurricular activities. Ignoring the news. Having ice cream treats in the middle of the day. Dreaming of living at the beach.


When that last day comes and the tears threaten and I try to just be present, it’s so damn hard. The tears start to form and I find myself actually just ready to “travel by map” as they say in the Muppets and be home. Just be done with it.

BUT

How lucky am I to have something so hard to say goodbye to? How lucky am I to have my parents who still want to go on vacation with us and our crew? How lucky am I to show my girls all the stuff I love ? So I’ll take that melancholy feeling along with something I say to the ocean every year “thanks for a great time. Hope to see you next year – if not before.”

here’s to summer 2025!

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kids Life Parenting

My weakness is I care too much

Anyone remember where that song lyric came from? I certainly did not until I hopped in the car last weekend as I was getting ready for my eldest daughter’s 6th birthday party. It’s from the Papa Roach song called Scars released in 2004 when I was 22. I thought – holy crap, yep, I care way too much about things! But I’m trying to let some things go and this post is all about self care and some things I’ve done to help me be a bit more balanced…

  1. Yoga Yoga Yoga – Throughout the years I’ve done a lot of yoga at various studios and at home – hot yoga, power yoga, restorative yoga, prenatal yoga. There’s the cutest little studio right around the corner from me and when it first opened, I tried to go to a bunch of classes but I’m one of those people that if I missed a class, I’d fall off the wagon and not go for awhile…so I rectified that and now I mainly do free YouTube Yoga with Adrienne videos. My approach to this is that my husband takes the girls to school/daycare each morning. As soon as they leave, I put a video on – some days I only have 10 minutes, sometimes I do 20. But I like her variety.

2. Walk this way – I’m all about the song lyrics today! I walk a lot – with the girls, with the dog etc but I’m not talking about those walks (though getting outside anytime definitely helps). Awhile back I realized on walks I do with Tucker, I’m taking care of him, making sure he goes potty, gets his exercise and doesn’t eat poop (I know, gross). But am I really taking care of myself? I guess I am a little bit but not as much as if I did it alone. So, most nights after dinner and before bedtime routines start, I’ve taken to doing a loop around the neighborhood and just taken everything in. It’s really been nice to have that breather after dinner and before bedtime battles begin.

3. Reading – I love to read – always has. I have a great imagination and books just help it expand. However, I definitely haven’t read as much as I’d like to in the last few years so one of my resolutions this year was to read at least 5 books this year. It’s mid July and I’ve already read 8! I try and read during lunch time or before bed and that’s also really helped with sleep.

Of course, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’d love weekly massages, unlimited pool time and some uninterrupted Netflix days, but I am doing what I can, when I can. Most days I’m able to do at least 1 of the things I mentioned above.

What are some things that help you?

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kids Life Parenting

lonely.

Part II

For almost 3 years I have worked from home – while my work has a physical location in Virginia, most everyone is remote. I love it – it’s perfect as a mom and especially works because my husband sometimes travels or frequently has night conference calls and working remotely allows me to get dinner ready, do laundry, walk the dog and not feel as overwhelmed like I would if I had to go to an office and work. I am super productive and can multitask like Simone Biles can sail through the air and make it look effortless. But, we all know it’s not and I’m also incredibly isolated. Not being from this area, I don’t have a core group of girlfriends nor do I seem to make women friends easily. I’ve joined Facebook groups for moms but it seems like every event there’s a conflict for me or is maybe not something I am interested in. Or it seems like plans would be made with a fellow mom friend and then we’d have to cancel because of the inevitable sickness. I’m also one of those people who could do one thing socially one week and then be OK for like 3 months being a hermit though lately I’ve felt the push to want to do more. I’ve had a lot of lonely days lately honestly.

I thought this year would be an opening – and it has been, but not as fast as I like. I’ve always heard when your kid starts elementary school, that’s a good place to find parent friends…well, that’s still very much a work in progress. Many of her classmates have moms who either have kids in higher grades so they’ve cemented friendships already or, as I’ve said before, they grew up here and aren’t too interested in expanding their friend group (or at least that’s how it feels on the outside looking in). I’ve done some mingling – I’ve joined the PTO so we’ll see. Frankly, I’ve actually had a bit more luck with Poppy’s 2 year old class. Part of that is because Poppy is a social butterfly. Not shy like Maggie and will play with almost anyone (though I must say I’m so damn proud of Maggie – she’s come so far and is one reason I’m working on making Mom friends).

I saw this social media meme recently that really resonated with me and I think that’s maybe why I’m feeling a certain way. With an almost 6 year old and almost 3 year old, some things are way easier and it’s easier to remember what I was once like.

I hope in a few months, I can report back that I’m starting to make a core group of friends. I admit, I’m not super optimistic – I’ve made some strides this year with opening myself up and also doing things for myself, but I’m pretty sure my therapist would be pushing for more if I could ever get into see her.

So, if you are a parent, how did you make friends? What did you do to care for yourself? I realize I didn’t really talk too much about self-care here…next time!

Categories
kids Life Parenting

I cry a lot but I am so productive Part 1

Taylor Swift fans will recognize the lyric which seems to resonate with a lot of people. While I don’t think I cry too much, I definitely get overwhelmed a lot but I am so.damn.productive.

It’s hard to know where to start. Maybe I’ll just start with a little background. After having my first daughter in 2018, I definitely had postpartum anxiety. Except I didn’t know what it was at the time. I would be fine with her going to daycare but as soon as work was over, I would speed to get her and I hated to be away from her ever. After she turned a year old, I saw a tberapist who basically was like, you need to get a life. I started to go to some yoga classes, getting all little more social and was feeling a bit better and then bam March 2020 and COVID happened. And we all know the isolation that brought.

I had to return to in-person work 3 months after and so Maggie returned to daycare but we were super careful and didn’t go out a lot or do things with others. I was also in the midst of fertility treatments for my second. Because of my age and the thought that I didn’t want to stay at my then job for a long time, we wanted to do the treatments because my insurance covered it…through the fall of 2020 and spring 2021 we were super careful even after getting our vaccines as I was pregnant. And frankly, I was busy raising a toddler, dealing with a hard pregnancy and working in addition to a global pandemic. I couldn’t handle anymore.

When Poppy arrived in August 2021 the world was slowly getting back to some normalcy but I still dealt with many daycare closures during my maternity leave and after due to COVID exposures and again, we didn’t do a whole lot that wasn’t an outside activity. And then right as Poppy was going to daycare, I got a new job – 100 percent work from home remote. Woo! The quality of life after working in a political office was and is refreshing but it can also be very lonely to work from home…

Stay tuned for part 2!