Whether you are a stay at home or working mother, chances are good that you aren't getting enough sleep. Did you know that the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends between seven and nine hours of sleep per day for healthy adults? Unfortunately, someone forgot to give our children the memo.
My husband and I are routinely awakened two to three times per night these days. Each of our three children manages to get up at some point during the night for the following reasons: hunger (the baby), thirst (the two year old), needing to use the bathroom (the four year old). Sometimes they have bad dreams, and other times the older ones simply get up in the middle of the night and start playing in their darkened room.
This means that we are lucky as parents if we get four whole hours in a row of quality, uninterrupted sleep. My most exotic fantasies these days are of finding myself in a quiet room with a pillow and blanket, totally alone, able to sleep peacefully for hours on end.
Anyone who has ever experienced fragmented sleep can tell you that as you accrue sleep debt over time you will find it increasingly difficult to stay alert, pay attention, speak with coherence and think clearly. Decision-making abilities become impaired, and normal or routine life stresses may begin to feel overwhelming.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, new parents typically lose up to 350 hours of sleep during a baby's first year of life! Sleep deprivation typically impacts breastfeeding mothers the most, but in many families will impact both parents equally ~ especially when their babies are formula fed or the mother expresses milk for nighttime bottle feeding.
For parents with elder children and a baby, the 350 number would be added to multiple additional hours of sleep forfeited yearly to care for their other children (or their spouse) during nighttime illnesses. Not to mention insomnia!
So if you find yourself wandering around the grocery store in a daze at 5pm, unable to remember what you came in to buy even though it is written on a list that you have forgotten you placed in your purse, take heart. You have not lost your mind, you're just exhausted! Look through this list of ways to get extra sleep and see if you can't attempt to get just a little more shut eye at some point during the course of your busy day. It will make a world of difference to your overall productivity, patience, physical health, sense of well-being and even to your ability to drive your children safely home from school.
Be Kind To Yourself ~ Tip 2: Get More Sleep
How It Works...
Where there's a will, there's a way. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Nap. Whomever said that sleeping should be done at night clearly did not understand the demands of parenting. If you can catch some Zs here and there throughout the course of the day, do it! Close the blinds to your office at work and throw down a nap mat during lunch hour! (Bring an alarm clock.) Pull up a cot or armchair next to your baby's crib. Turn off the telephone while your kids visit with grandma for an hour, or even recline the driver's seat in your car and shut your eyes for thirty minutes during soccer or football practice. It's not a sin to sleep! Just the opposite in fact - by getting enough sleep you are helping yourself to become a better parent.
- Share the chance to nurture. You don't have to do it all. If your husband, partner, mother or best friend is willing to get up with your baby or older children in the middle of the night so that you can sleep - just say yes! Nursing moms can pump breastmilk into bottles that are ready for others to use to feed their babies in the wee hours of the morning. Not only is it "okay" to share the responsibilities of parenting, it is also really healthy for your children to share valuable bonding moments with caregivers beyond their mother alone. Give dad or grandma the opportunity to share the late-night love.
- Get your kids on a sleep schedule. Studies show that children without a regular bedtime who stay awake until they fall asleep on their own tend to be overtired, get poor quality sleep and demonstrate irritability throughout the day. It is healthy for your children to go to bed at a reasonable hour every night, and even healthier for you when they do. Aim to get your older children to bed in time for you to get a good seven hours of sleep per night (even if they will be seven hours interrupted by feedings, etc.) Putting your infants on a clearly defined sleep schedule will help ALL of you to get enough rest. Remember, children between 2 and 18 months of age need up to 15 hours of sleep per day... your toddlers (until age 3) need up to 14 hours per day, and heck - even your adolescent boys and girls are advised to get 9.5 hours of sleep per night. If your kids are getting the recommended amount of sleep each day, there is a much better chance that you will be sleeping too!
- Ask for help. There is no shame in asking for help, especially not to fill such a basic human need. If you are overly tired and there is a responsible adult in your life that can help care for your children so that you can get a little more sleep, you owe it to yourself and your kids to ask for what you need. Here are some people you may consider asking for babysitting help: your spouse or partner, your parents, your partner's parents, your best friend(s), your child's preschool teachers, and of course trustworthy professional (CPR certified) babysitters over the age of 18 with great references.
(by Andrea Morton, Copyright 2009)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Be Kind To Yourself ~ Tip 1:
Soak Those Tired Feet!
Whether your children are preschoolers, pre-teens or on their way to college, you are sure to experience some long days on your feet. You may not even realize how much strain your feet withstand over the course of 24 hours.
If you think about it, your feet must by themselves support the weight of your entire body. No matter how much you weigh all of the bone, muscle, liquid and fat that comprise your body is carried all day long by these two smallish, fairly delicate and bony structures that have adapted over thousands of years to be optimal for walking and running ~ but perhaps not doing so while wearing high heels or flip flops (or carrying toddlers).
There are some days when my feet are so tired by 7pm, they get a little swollen or warm. Other days (like today) they merely ache. It would be nice to have a husband or partner available at all such moments to provide greatly appreciated giving of foot and calf rubs. Unfortunately, most of us did not marry professional masseurs. In fact, many of our significant others may actually be in the other room watching TV while we tuck our children in for the night and daydream about relaxing.
So here is my first tip for mommy care... soak those tired feet!* It is easy to do, costs basically nothing, and can be done while you knit or sew, write thank you notes, pay the bills, plan a garden, answer your email, read a book or even join your best friend in front of the TV.
Be Kind To Yourself ~ Tip 1: Soak Those Tired Feet
How It Works...
Simple as can be!
(1) Grab a deep pan, portable tub or bucket and fill it with about a quart of water heated until it is as warm as you can stand it.
(2) Add about 1/2 cup of something special. Options include:
Epsom Salts
Kosher Salts
Vinegar
Several bags (4-6) of Sage Tea
(3) Soak your feet for approximately 15 minutes.
As an added benefit, soaking with the vinegar or sage tea apparently may also have a positive effect on the odor of your feet.
I know it may be hard for some mommies to stay off their feet for that long, when you probably have lunches to pack, laundry to do, school projects to help with, dishes to wash, etc. Make the time though, mommies. You deserve it... and so do your feet!
*Please note that I am not a physician or medical expert and have no training in physical therapy or sports medicine. I am not qualified to give medical advice. Just reporting what has worked for me and other mommy friends to ease our aching tootsies. Consult with your own doctor before attempting a home foot soak.
If you think about it, your feet must by themselves support the weight of your entire body. No matter how much you weigh all of the bone, muscle, liquid and fat that comprise your body is carried all day long by these two smallish, fairly delicate and bony structures that have adapted over thousands of years to be optimal for walking and running ~ but perhaps not doing so while wearing high heels or flip flops (or carrying toddlers).
There are some days when my feet are so tired by 7pm, they get a little swollen or warm. Other days (like today) they merely ache. It would be nice to have a husband or partner available at all such moments to provide greatly appreciated giving of foot and calf rubs. Unfortunately, most of us did not marry professional masseurs. In fact, many of our significant others may actually be in the other room watching TV while we tuck our children in for the night and daydream about relaxing.
So here is my first tip for mommy care... soak those tired feet!* It is easy to do, costs basically nothing, and can be done while you knit or sew, write thank you notes, pay the bills, plan a garden, answer your email, read a book or even join your best friend in front of the TV.
Be Kind To Yourself ~ Tip 1: Soak Those Tired Feet
How It Works...
Simple as can be!
(1) Grab a deep pan, portable tub or bucket and fill it with about a quart of water heated until it is as warm as you can stand it.
(2) Add about 1/2 cup of something special. Options include:
Epsom Salts
Kosher Salts
Vinegar
Several bags (4-6) of Sage Tea
(3) Soak your feet for approximately 15 minutes.
As an added benefit, soaking with the vinegar or sage tea apparently may also have a positive effect on the odor of your feet.
I know it may be hard for some mommies to stay off their feet for that long, when you probably have lunches to pack, laundry to do, school projects to help with, dishes to wash, etc. Make the time though, mommies. You deserve it... and so do your feet!
*Please note that I am not a physician or medical expert and have no training in physical therapy or sports medicine. I am not qualified to give medical advice. Just reporting what has worked for me and other mommy friends to ease our aching tootsies. Consult with your own doctor before attempting a home foot soak.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Mommies... Often Go Awry
I came up with the idea for this blog a few days ago, at one of those low moments when you wonder why you ever thought having children was a great idea in the first place. I know that is a terrible thing to say out loud (or write), especially when there are so many women in the world who would do anything to be in my situation. Three kids, all healthy. I am blessed to be a mother, and I truly am grateful to God, my husband, and whatever unseen forces propelled us down this long and winding road called parenthood.
But seriously, do you ever have a day when so many things go wrong continuously that there comes a moment when you feel like you need to sit down in the middle of all the chaos and just laugh... or cry?
I had one of those days last Friday. I woke up feeling full of energy and hope, and stronger than I have since giving birth by c-section to our baby three months ago. I thought to myself, "We really need a rug to go under the dining room table so we'll stop scratching up the wood floor in our house!" and then I surprised even myself by deciding, "You know, I think I'm going to take all three kids on an adventure to IKEA."
If you're anything like my husband, at this point you may already be shaking your head and smiling at the sheer absurdity of my plan. Taking two toddlers and a baby to IKEA? To buy a rug? Without help? Really? This is a good idea?
All I can say in retrospect is that, like so many things in life that we end up regretting, it seemed like a good plan at the time.
I don't know what I was expecting... maybe that the boys would actually listen to me for once, or that they would be so excited about getting out of the house that they would forget to argue with each other and squabble like crazed wildebeests. What I can say for sure, is that I definitely never envisioned the madness that followed from the moment I parked in the IKEA loading zone - which yes, I know is not allowed - and the moment 37 minutes (and about three quarts of sweat) later when we were finally back on the road heading home.
To spare you the more tedious dramatics of the adventure, I'll just compile a simple list of the highlights:
1) Toddler boys sprint ahead of their mother about a half block ahead and nearly trip an old woman with a walker edging slowly along with assistance.
2) IKEA rug section is determined by said toddlers to have previously unsuspected climbing wall qualities. Thick cardboard rug rolls can apparently be removed from the center of actual rugs with very little effort and used as both pole vaults and jousting rods.
3) A good way to experience worry and total humiliation at the same moment is to have your two year old child run away from you while you are trapped in the front of a long line with your baby attached to the shopping cart, rendering you unable to run after him. Other adults in neighboring lines will glare at you skeptically and call out "He's over here!" and "Lady, come get your kid!" while you try to figure out how to rescue your child before he darts to another part of the showroom, without abandoning your other two children.
4) Older boys take a keen interest in disciplining their younger brothers, and may surprise you by taking off their seat belt and getting out of the booster seat while you are driving home in order to berate their sibling for running away. Note: Younger sibling trapped in his own Britax car seat will be unable to avoid the brotherly pummeling. This situation will require quick thinking and dexterity as you carefully maneuver the car off of the freeway and park it at the side of the road before re-attaching the elder child to his booster seat. Noise level within your vehicle may be quite elevated for the rest of the drive home.
5) When you finally get home and think, "NAPTIME!" make sure that there is no possible way that either of your children can go through your husband's things in the bathroom, find his overnight travel kit, remove a nail file set and use the cuticle scissors for a quick trim. "Mommy, we haircutted ourselves!" are perhaps four of the most mother-heart-stopping words in the toddler lexicon. Mercifully, my boys are now sporting small bald patches but no scars or wounds of any kind. They will be lucky if we let them use another scissors before they are twenty.
I think that about sums it up. By the time my husband arrived home from work and our sons were at last napping, I essentially handed him the baby, crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over my head. I am only 33 but on days like this, it often feels more like 80.
I wish I was the kind of well organized mother who remembers to bring extra snacks to the park for my kids to share with their little friends, or the kind of mom who manages to get her kids fed, bathed and into bed by 7pm every night. There are so many things I wish I could do better or differently. Some days, I'm so tired that it is all I can do just to make sure the kids are clean, well fed and safe. Forget baby yoga classes or playgroup. We're all happy if I can just find time to read them "Thomas the Tank Engine" and do some laundry.
I never imagined that being a mother would be so challenging; that it wouldn't come to me naturally. Before all this, back in the days when I wore somewhat stylish clothing free of spit-up, I taught school for ten years. I thought I knew so much about parenting... that I could do it well and make it look easy. Ha! Five years later, I find myself sending silent apologies every day to so many of the parents I met with in parent-teacher conferences. I thought I had some notion of what it means to be a good parent. I was an idiot.
You may wonder how last Friday turned out. Well, after gorging myself on chocolate chip cookies I lamely comforted myself with the cliche that 90% of success in life is just showing up. (We then enrolled our older son in preschool.) My friend Pam advised me to rent and watch "Marley and Me" so that I would understand that this phase we are growing through is so common that it has become a stereotype. I watched it twice within 24 hours. I do feel a little better.
I keep showing up for this job every day, even though it isn't getting any easier. I guess that does count for something. And despite the white hairs that are popping out all over my scalp... I love my three kids with an intensity I never knew existed until the day I met them. Fractious. Messy. Sweet. Miracles.
But seriously, do you ever have a day when so many things go wrong continuously that there comes a moment when you feel like you need to sit down in the middle of all the chaos and just laugh... or cry?
I had one of those days last Friday. I woke up feeling full of energy and hope, and stronger than I have since giving birth by c-section to our baby three months ago. I thought to myself, "We really need a rug to go under the dining room table so we'll stop scratching up the wood floor in our house!" and then I surprised even myself by deciding, "You know, I think I'm going to take all three kids on an adventure to IKEA."
If you're anything like my husband, at this point you may already be shaking your head and smiling at the sheer absurdity of my plan. Taking two toddlers and a baby to IKEA? To buy a rug? Without help? Really? This is a good idea?
All I can say in retrospect is that, like so many things in life that we end up regretting, it seemed like a good plan at the time.
I don't know what I was expecting... maybe that the boys would actually listen to me for once, or that they would be so excited about getting out of the house that they would forget to argue with each other and squabble like crazed wildebeests. What I can say for sure, is that I definitely never envisioned the madness that followed from the moment I parked in the IKEA loading zone - which yes, I know is not allowed - and the moment 37 minutes (and about three quarts of sweat) later when we were finally back on the road heading home.
To spare you the more tedious dramatics of the adventure, I'll just compile a simple list of the highlights:
1) Toddler boys sprint ahead of their mother about a half block ahead and nearly trip an old woman with a walker edging slowly along with assistance.
2) IKEA rug section is determined by said toddlers to have previously unsuspected climbing wall qualities. Thick cardboard rug rolls can apparently be removed from the center of actual rugs with very little effort and used as both pole vaults and jousting rods.
3) A good way to experience worry and total humiliation at the same moment is to have your two year old child run away from you while you are trapped in the front of a long line with your baby attached to the shopping cart, rendering you unable to run after him. Other adults in neighboring lines will glare at you skeptically and call out "He's over here!" and "Lady, come get your kid!" while you try to figure out how to rescue your child before he darts to another part of the showroom, without abandoning your other two children.
4) Older boys take a keen interest in disciplining their younger brothers, and may surprise you by taking off their seat belt and getting out of the booster seat while you are driving home in order to berate their sibling for running away. Note: Younger sibling trapped in his own Britax car seat will be unable to avoid the brotherly pummeling. This situation will require quick thinking and dexterity as you carefully maneuver the car off of the freeway and park it at the side of the road before re-attaching the elder child to his booster seat. Noise level within your vehicle may be quite elevated for the rest of the drive home.
5) When you finally get home and think, "NAPTIME!" make sure that there is no possible way that either of your children can go through your husband's things in the bathroom, find his overnight travel kit, remove a nail file set and use the cuticle scissors for a quick trim. "Mommy, we haircutted ourselves!" are perhaps four of the most mother-heart-stopping words in the toddler lexicon. Mercifully, my boys are now sporting small bald patches but no scars or wounds of any kind. They will be lucky if we let them use another scissors before they are twenty.
I think that about sums it up. By the time my husband arrived home from work and our sons were at last napping, I essentially handed him the baby, crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over my head. I am only 33 but on days like this, it often feels more like 80.
I wish I was the kind of well organized mother who remembers to bring extra snacks to the park for my kids to share with their little friends, or the kind of mom who manages to get her kids fed, bathed and into bed by 7pm every night. There are so many things I wish I could do better or differently. Some days, I'm so tired that it is all I can do just to make sure the kids are clean, well fed and safe. Forget baby yoga classes or playgroup. We're all happy if I can just find time to read them "Thomas the Tank Engine" and do some laundry.
I never imagined that being a mother would be so challenging; that it wouldn't come to me naturally. Before all this, back in the days when I wore somewhat stylish clothing free of spit-up, I taught school for ten years. I thought I knew so much about parenting... that I could do it well and make it look easy. Ha! Five years later, I find myself sending silent apologies every day to so many of the parents I met with in parent-teacher conferences. I thought I had some notion of what it means to be a good parent. I was an idiot.
You may wonder how last Friday turned out. Well, after gorging myself on chocolate chip cookies I lamely comforted myself with the cliche that 90% of success in life is just showing up. (We then enrolled our older son in preschool.) My friend Pam advised me to rent and watch "Marley and Me" so that I would understand that this phase we are growing through is so common that it has become a stereotype. I watched it twice within 24 hours. I do feel a little better.
I keep showing up for this job every day, even though it isn't getting any easier. I guess that does count for something. And despite the white hairs that are popping out all over my scalp... I love my three kids with an intensity I never knew existed until the day I met them. Fractious. Messy. Sweet. Miracles.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
CODE RED TANTRUM
Where are the Reinforcements?
Mayday. Mayday.
Here I am on the front lines of parenthood. Two minutes ago everything seemed fine but incoming - dead ahead - I see and hear a code red tantrum developing... I repeat, CODE RED TANTRUM. Three children under the age of five (mine) have all begun to cry all at once. Two boys and a baby girl... getting louder by the second. The boys are scrabbling on the ground over a yellow TONKA dump truck that they both want to play with, even though there is another identical truck sitting less than four feet away from them. The baby has a runny nose, she's hungry, and will only calm down if I'm holding her. I was trying to make dinner, but I'd better turn off the stove.
This may sound silly to people without children, people with calm children, people whose children are more than three years apart in age. People (sorry, but from our experience it's true) with daughters. It will probably sound silliest of all to people with more than three children - like our friends who have four and talk about how easy it was to have only three. I mean, come on - I'm talking about toddlers with a plastic truck and a thirsty baby, right? Okay, so they're crying in unison. For the fifth time today.
What's the big deal?
You're right of course -- when compared with ending world hunger, finding homes and jobs for the homeless, solving the Middle East crisis, ending racial tension, getting universal health care passed in the USA -- my problems do seem petty. I freely admit it. There are people dying all over the world at this very moment, dying of preventable diseases they got from drinking contaminated water. There are women just like me ~ 33 years old, wife, mother, once a dreamer of dreams ~ who are cradling their crying children and trying to explain why their lives have been torn apart by war, greed, murder.
I care about those women. I want to help them. I know that my life path has been graced by incredible luck.
And I HATE that I have become a whiner.
I'm embarrassed to even be telling you about my kids' tantrum because I hold myself up to an impossible ideal of motherhood (my own mother) and with every passing day that I don't live up to my memories of her excellence I feel like more and more of a parenting failure. The house I grew up in was always clean. The laundry was folded and ironed. Dinner was always homemade and ready on time, and above all, our house was quiet. I don't know how she did it. My house is nothing like this.
Over the past five years and three babies, I've realized that I will never be my own mother. I am a different mother, with a different skill set. This is not necessarily a bad thing. So, I stick with a cliche that now works as my parenting mantra: "90% of success is just showing up". I repeat it to myself all of the time. Listening to them screaming, I'm repeating it right now.
I detach one crying boy's hand from its death grip on the hair of the other crying boy and briefly imagine peace. A home where my children play happily side by side. Laughing. Joyful.
Twenty minutes later, despite my best efforts (reasoning, working on sharing, distraction, giving a snack, giving a time-out), everyone is still crying. I take a deep breath and count to ten in my head. Upstairs on my nightstand I've got a stack of parenting manuals, and close at hand a cell phone with my best friend's home telephone number on speed dial. I've already run through the strategies I used for years as an elementary school teacher - many of which were wonderful for conflict resolution in the classroom. So WHY, WHY, WHY isn't anything working?
As my own chin begins to quiver and I fight back the tears welling up in my eyes, I think to myself, "I need someone to take care of me too!" I only slept for about three hours last night. I forgot to eat lunch because I was too busy putting the kids down for their naps, changing diapers, refilling bottles and bathing the baby. I dozed off twice sitting up while reading nap-time stories. My hair smells of rotten milk and I can't remember if I actually brushed it today. At this rate, dinner won't be ready before 8.
I feel so alone.
I have a great husband, but he's at work.
I have a great mother who treats me like gold, but she has hit her own "golden years" and is now traveling far away.
I have wonderful friends and siblings, many of whom have kids of their own but there is literally nobody I can call for advice at this exact moment - even if I had the time to pick up the telephone. Which I don't. (Not like they could hear me speaking over this ruckus anyway.)
And this is when it hits me - the brainstorm. I am not alone because somewhere among the nearly 7 billion people on this planet, there has got to be another mother feeling exactly the same as I am right now.
So, overwhelmed mommies of the world, this blog is for you. I hope it will slowly grow and become a resource that you can turn to at moments when you are feeling completely alone... when you need advice about how to get through your day and on to the next one... a reminder that you've got to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help those around you... and most of all ~ a big huge hug ~ when you just need someone to take care of you too.
Here I am on the front lines of parenthood. Two minutes ago everything seemed fine but incoming - dead ahead - I see and hear a code red tantrum developing... I repeat, CODE RED TANTRUM. Three children under the age of five (mine) have all begun to cry all at once. Two boys and a baby girl... getting louder by the second. The boys are scrabbling on the ground over a yellow TONKA dump truck that they both want to play with, even though there is another identical truck sitting less than four feet away from them. The baby has a runny nose, she's hungry, and will only calm down if I'm holding her. I was trying to make dinner, but I'd better turn off the stove.
This may sound silly to people without children, people with calm children, people whose children are more than three years apart in age. People (sorry, but from our experience it's true) with daughters. It will probably sound silliest of all to people with more than three children - like our friends who have four and talk about how easy it was to have only three. I mean, come on - I'm talking about toddlers with a plastic truck and a thirsty baby, right? Okay, so they're crying in unison. For the fifth time today.
What's the big deal?
You're right of course -- when compared with ending world hunger, finding homes and jobs for the homeless, solving the Middle East crisis, ending racial tension, getting universal health care passed in the USA -- my problems do seem petty. I freely admit it. There are people dying all over the world at this very moment, dying of preventable diseases they got from drinking contaminated water. There are women just like me ~ 33 years old, wife, mother, once a dreamer of dreams ~ who are cradling their crying children and trying to explain why their lives have been torn apart by war, greed, murder.
I care about those women. I want to help them. I know that my life path has been graced by incredible luck.
And I HATE that I have become a whiner.
I'm embarrassed to even be telling you about my kids' tantrum because I hold myself up to an impossible ideal of motherhood (my own mother) and with every passing day that I don't live up to my memories of her excellence I feel like more and more of a parenting failure. The house I grew up in was always clean. The laundry was folded and ironed. Dinner was always homemade and ready on time, and above all, our house was quiet. I don't know how she did it. My house is nothing like this.
Over the past five years and three babies, I've realized that I will never be my own mother. I am a different mother, with a different skill set. This is not necessarily a bad thing. So, I stick with a cliche that now works as my parenting mantra: "90% of success is just showing up". I repeat it to myself all of the time. Listening to them screaming, I'm repeating it right now.
I detach one crying boy's hand from its death grip on the hair of the other crying boy and briefly imagine peace. A home where my children play happily side by side. Laughing. Joyful.
Twenty minutes later, despite my best efforts (reasoning, working on sharing, distraction, giving a snack, giving a time-out), everyone is still crying. I take a deep breath and count to ten in my head. Upstairs on my nightstand I've got a stack of parenting manuals, and close at hand a cell phone with my best friend's home telephone number on speed dial. I've already run through the strategies I used for years as an elementary school teacher - many of which were wonderful for conflict resolution in the classroom. So WHY, WHY, WHY isn't anything working?
As my own chin begins to quiver and I fight back the tears welling up in my eyes, I think to myself, "I need someone to take care of me too!" I only slept for about three hours last night. I forgot to eat lunch because I was too busy putting the kids down for their naps, changing diapers, refilling bottles and bathing the baby. I dozed off twice sitting up while reading nap-time stories. My hair smells of rotten milk and I can't remember if I actually brushed it today. At this rate, dinner won't be ready before 8.
I feel so alone.
I have a great husband, but he's at work.
I have a great mother who treats me like gold, but she has hit her own "golden years" and is now traveling far away.
I have wonderful friends and siblings, many of whom have kids of their own but there is literally nobody I can call for advice at this exact moment - even if I had the time to pick up the telephone. Which I don't. (Not like they could hear me speaking over this ruckus anyway.)
And this is when it hits me - the brainstorm. I am not alone because somewhere among the nearly 7 billion people on this planet, there has got to be another mother feeling exactly the same as I am right now.
So, overwhelmed mommies of the world, this blog is for you. I hope it will slowly grow and become a resource that you can turn to at moments when you are feeling completely alone... when you need advice about how to get through your day and on to the next one... a reminder that you've got to put on your own oxygen mask before you can help those around you... and most of all ~ a big huge hug ~ when you just need someone to take care of you too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)