motherhood – My Life is a Work in Progress

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.

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!