Confession: I’m 43 and I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. Or what my passions are most days. Am I even a grown up? Some days I don’t feel like one.
I know that sounds like crazy talk. I’m married. I have two kids and a dog and a full-time job in public affairs that I enjoy and that I’m good at. I’ve been recognized at work for some of my achievements.
But some days (most days) I feel like an imposter. Or that I should be so much farther along in my life or know more things. There are days where I can’t believe I’m even a parent and in charge of two little humans (let’s be honest here, they are actually in charge of me). I’m trying not to bash myself here but it’s hard.
The other day I used my favorite tool that I use when I don’t know the answer for something or am trying to learn more about something: Google. God bless Google. I mean, sure I can find myself doom scrolling if I have a health question but damn Google can find it all and then some. Thanks to Google I found this scarymommy article and felt slightly less alone.
However what I’ve been learning about myself and what I’ve been trying to preach on here a bit is making more time for your self and the activities you want.
This summer, I’ve set a small goal to learn more about the creative outlets I like – not just this blog but to learn more social media skills. I like to be creative but not arty if that makes sense – don’t ask me to go to a paint night and expect a masterpiece – I’m there for the wine mainly. I do want to focus on things I like: dogs, reading, finding fun things for my kids and how to share that with the world.
And yes, while my blog posts can sometimes feel a little all over the place, maybe this process will too. But I’m here and ready to learn.
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.
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!
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…
Minus being a dog mom (which I do think trains you well for being a parent of children when you have a needy dog like I do), I’m relatively new to this whole parenting thing. I always say I’m a “new mom”, despite the fact that my daughter just turned 2 because quite frankly, everything is freaking new.
Back in March when the world stopped turning and all our workplaces and daycares and schools shut down, I was both relieved and terrified. Relieved that we had the ability to work from home and that she was too young to process anything going on. Terrified as to how we were going to handle it all with a then 20 month old toddler (not to mention her easily excited 6 year old golden retriever brother). And of course, I was terrified about all of the unknown of COVID-19. I mean, where in the parenting guidebook is the chapter “How to parent in a Pandemic?” Is that covered under “how not to shit your pants?”
I have learned that my little one thrives when there is a routine (as does her Mama), so I sprang into action. Back in January, I had actually taken a picture of her daycare “schedule,” because I am a helicopter Mom and having an App for Daycare just isn’t enough for this woman…nope, I had to get the schedule too. Well, I modeled our days at home after that schedule. I started to come up with themes and crafts and stories. Every night or every other night, I’d come up with activities for the next day so we weren’t flying completely blind.
My husband and I worked to take turns parenting for the morning and afternoon unless there was crazy stuff happening at work because us just doing an hour on, an hour off was too jarring for her. I ordered lots of new toys and art supplies. We went on lots of walks. We did Zoom with my parents. And fortunately, her daycare provided 3 days a week of Zoom storytimes, music times and Shabbat that was a half hour each morning. We did this until June 22 when her daycare reopened partially and she was able to go back.
I make this sound so easy breezy, when in reality, here are some things that happened: * She stopped sleeping through the night. So did the dog.
* I felt so stressed from work, coming up with activities, parenting and dealing with the scaries of the world that I would cry frequently, worry and stress.
*Not every activity was a hit, we didn’t follow the schedule to a T (what toddler does?) and sometimes naps were not in a crib but on one of us.
* I ended up taking the COVID leave that work offered because I got to a point where I just couldn’t do it all and not have meltdowns. Even with my husband, let’s be honest – the bulk of childcare rests squarely on Mom’s shoulders.
BUT because I try to be positive, here are some really awesome things that happened
*Hello! We got extra time with her in a time of her life that goes by in a blink of an eye.
*While there was a lot to balance, I didn’t feel rushed at home like I would normally when it’s time to go to work, daycare, dinnertime, bathtime, etc… the commute was easy and hello yoga pants uniform!* I got to see the awesome work her daycare does on a daily basis with their Zoom calls. It was so cool to see her “interact” with the programming. They were seriously lifesavers.
*I got to see her progress on skills and was much more focused on quality time. *I got to be really creative and some of the things I found out to do were so fun!
Now that she’s back at daycare and I’m physically at work, I still struggle if we are doing the right thing, but daycare has been going above and beyond with their safety protocols. I also struggle with the fact that I could pass it on to her because of people not following protocols. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to wear a mask, socially distance and wash your hands.
Even with things opening back up here in PA, we are still not going anywhere and and sometimes that’s really hard on the weekend because I am back to trying to come up with things to occupy a toddler’s time. Thank goodness for a mostly shady backyard and an inflatable pool and water table! I do wonder if she’s like, why aren’t I going into stores or out to eat? Yes, those places are open but we are choosing to be extra vigilant. In my next post, I’ll document some of the craft ideas and other things we have done and the hits and misses. For now, for those still stuck at home, give yourself GRACE. You are doing the best you can. You are MORE than enough for your little one, for your family, for friends.
Greetings! If you’ve stumbled upon this page, I’d like to either say thank you or I’m sorry. I used to have a blog devoted to our pup Tucker and then it evolved a bit when I had our baby girl. Then life just got too damn busy and I haven’t written for “fun” in quite some time.
Guess What? Life is Still So Freaking Busy that I’m not even sure why I’m starting this up again. I’m a working mom of a 2 year old girl who is busy.busy.busy and an almost 7 year old golden retriever who is also busy.busy.busy. Add in a husband and a day job that involves a lot of writing and reading and well, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything else.
Of course, if you are here, you probably knew a lot of that already. So…why am I doing this? Will I keep up with it?
Well, the answer of WHY is like most everyone else, the last 5 months of restrictions have been hard. I’m an introvert by nature but we also spent 4 months working from home with no childcare help. Every night I got creative and did lesson plans for the next day for our toddler to keep her busy and us sane. I really enjoyed doing it and while tiring, it also energized me in a way creatively that had been missing from my life. It was clear that like most who do a lot of writing at their job, my creativity for things in my personal life had taken a bit of a backseat. So, I want to try this again. This blog is honestly not going to be centered on one thing – some days you might get my thoughts on the current state of affairs, sometimes you might get mom tales, sometimes you might get recommendations on kids and dogs products, and sometimes I might try and pull out my inner philosopher/life coach musings. I just don’t know.
I also don’t know how often I’ll post. I’ve had a few days of vacation which is why I am doing it now, but when the toddler is home, there is literally nothing I do alone. NOTHING.
Also, I just want to put it out there – anything on my blog is 100 percent my thoughts and opinions. I don’t speak for anyone else but myself (I don’t even speak for my baby or my dog – they have their own thoughts).
My Life is a Work in Progress 