SURVIVING MOTHERHOOD?

Some call this the most horribly wonderful job on earth, others say they are trying to survive motherhood... I don't want to survive motherhood - I want to LIVE it!!! Once my kids are grown I don't want to look back and think, I wish I would have done this or I should have done that....  I want to embrace life as a stay at home mom to two kids and all its mayhem.  And I certainly don't want my children to look back on their childhood and think that their mom was always tired, stressed out, upset and angry.

When things are going good - both kids are behaving - i.e. no one is pulling hair or hitting the other, it's easy to want to use that time to get the piles of laundry done or  browse the latest social media websites (i.e. Facebook and Pinterest); however, when things are good I've realized that it's important to focus on the good - take it all in  and get "engaged" with my children so that I don't miss out on how quickly they change.  I'm not sure who said this first or where I even read it but it's so true-

The days are long, but the years are short.

I love what it stands for - how each day is important. Before we know it another month, year, five years have gone by -  the days vanish and we can't get them back.   

Some days provide more challenges than others and it's often during those challenging times that I begin to question why I chose to be a full time stay at home mom in the first place.  I mean washing, folding, vacuuming, scrubbing, changing poopy diapers, wiping oohy gooey sticky stuff off every surface in the house, making to-do lists, grocery shopping and disciplining my children is not very fulfilling for me. During the more challenging times I try to ask myself, "what would be a successful outcome in this situation?" which is then followed by the questions, "what actions can I take to get this outcome? and what action should I do first?"  I think it's also important to acknowledge and accept that motherhood and being a SAHM is not easy.  It is going to be hard and you won't always like it.

So... when the kids are acting up and all I want to do is get some housework done or work on the craft project I've been dying to do, I try to remind myself - this too shall pass.  Everything does, the good and the bad - so I try to not focus on all the things that are not going the way I want them to.  It likely won't last too long and while it is I take a deep breath and then pray that my hubby comes home soon so I can pour myself a nice glass of wine.

xoxo
neisha