Summertime Fun

My husband left me. To Guatemala. On a missions trip. So I have a week off to lament my husband's departure and go on the adventure of single parenting. So Laurie came to rescue me. My sweetheart crit partner is a beacon of light in a lonely week where this work-outside-the-home would be a tad loss at what to do with the littles. So Laurie flew in from Oklahoma with her little, AG, and we are having a party complete with ice cream, double stuffed oreos, princess dress up, bubbles, and swimming! Poor Peter Pan is the only boy, but he's surviving by trying on princess shoes, tiaras and he's rocking the Sofia the Princess amulet necklace. (Daddy will be so proud).

It's VBS all week, so we're taking the kiddos there for some healthy Spiritual dosage and disappearing for a few hours to write and chat romance for our novels. Then whisk the kiddos away to bed and more late night writing and rom-coms.

It's a rough life being on vacation and having a girl party. Seeing friends is so heartwarming when your right arm was cut off and flown to Central America.

So what's your favorite thing to do with your girlfriends? How do you survive the woes of a missing spouse?

When You Just Need a Time Out...

You've probably heard this before, but that's because it's true...

One of the best things about being a SAHM is being with your kids all day long.

One of the most challenging parts about being a SAHM is being with your kids all day long.

Lest anyone think I am waging the mommy wars, I will go ahead and clarify that with 100% of my being, I think any combo of being a mom and whatever else (staying home, working at home, working somewhere else) is equally hard. I've done some combination of all of them, and seriously, y'all, they're all hard in different ways.

Whew. Disclaimer made. ;)

But one of those things I think SAHMs sometimes feel stressed about is that being home thing. The lack of a break. Sure, they can watch TV if both of their kids nap at the same time. They can blow off folding laundry and play on Pinterest (I see those envious looks, WAHMS. ;) ) BUT...if they need a break?

Nobody cares.

That's not true. Your best friend, husband, mom, dad, whoever loves you and is over four feet tall...They might care. But those cute little crazy people who run around your house dumping enough Cheerios on the floor to feed an entire country? They really don't care about your need for a few mental health moments.

Here are the best ways I can come up with, fellow mommies, to get at least a small break on those days when you think there's not enough coffee in the world help you make it to bedtime:

1. Shut the door when you go to the bathroom. Yes, we have to go there. Moms, shut the door. It's two minutes. Having that to yourself will go a long way towards calming down your day. Put your kid in the high chair and turn on the TV for two minutes if you don't feel its safe to leave your munchkin alone, but seriously? I'm over the "moms have company in the bathroom" school of thought. Let's let this one go, okay?

2. Listen to your music. Tell your adorable kiddo-pies that Mommy needs some music time. Turn it on loud and let it calm you down (I really like to turn on worship music when it's the last thing I want to listen to...It usually helps.)

3. Give yourself a break. Emotionally, that is. Remind yourself that usually you feed your kids 10000000% organic, blah, blah, blah, free range, blah, blah meals and give them a sandwich and chips on days like this. Yes, you heard me. Chips. They'll be fine. Lose the mom guilt already.

4. Leave the house. Hopefully you can think of something fun to do, which will help even more, but driving anywhere puts your kids in a safe, contained place and gives you a few minutes to yourself. Bonus points if you use this driving time to get yourself Starbucks. ;)

And my personal, crazy-sounding favorite...

5. Do something fun with your kids. What? Yeah, I know. This one sounds crazy. But if you're finding yourself counting down to bedtime (haha, especially if it's, like, ten in the morning when you start this...) then jumping in there with your kids and just enjoying them is the quickest way I've found to fix this attitude. Pull out some fingerpaints, hang up their masterpieces when they're done, and I can almost promise you that the ten minutes all of this takes can turn your attitude 180 degrees. Again, I know your brain is telling me this one makes no sense. Trust me. It really does.

Our Magical Summer

When I was a kid, summers meant getting outside as fast as humanly possible. I remember eating breakfast on the driveway because it was the only time all day it was cool enough for bare feet. 

And my feet were always bare.

I remember playing dinosaurs with my brothers and reading books all day among the branches of my favorite tree. Imagination overload. It was the best.

I remember washing off all the dirt at night and then falling asleep in a fort watching a movie with chocolate milk. My childhood summers were magical.

---

One of my biggest (irrational, I'll admit) fears as a parent is that my kid will remember me as the mom in front of the screen. I've alluded to that before. 

But this summer, there's no way that's going to happen. 

I've created a hashtag on Instagram: #ourmagicalsummer. So far, there have been lemonade stands, fairy wings, a pet turtle, and adventures with the older neighbor kids she adores. 

See Exhibit A below:

How much more magical does it get than bare feet, a ballet bun, a dress for twirling, and fairy wings? She only gets to be a kid once, so we're going to make it our mission to find out.

---

What do you remember about your magical summers?

How to maintain creativity when your brain's stretched to the limit

There was a night this week we had a showdown. It was of Wild West proportions and all in the name of vegetables. Apparently my two-year-old wasn't in the mood for the summer squash sauté I'd prepared.

And, frankly, any night I make dinner with a cutting board and skillet is something to be celebrated.

So after a peaceful resolution despite lost privileges and hostage-style negotiations (she has just learned how to bargain), cleaning up dinner, and writing a few work blog posts in attorney-speak, I sat down to get some writing done.

And that part of my brain goes:

Here are some tips for getting into creative mode when your brain is a little low on real estate. At least, this is how it looks for me sometimes.

1. Leave your house or go to a quiet, secluded spot if such a thing exists in your home. It's the only way.  
2. Remember something urgent that needs to be done. This happens without fail.
3. Do it or make a list if it can't be accomplished at this moment in time.
4. Acquire caffeine/sustenance. Lots of it. In IV form, if possible.
5. Turn brain onto creative mode. This is also known as "research", which if you looked it up in the thesaurus, would also be called procrastination. And if you took truth serum, it would be called YouTube video rabbit trails and chatting with your BFFs on Facebook.
6. Hit your creative stride with approximately 5 minutes of allotted time left. This might also involve passive aggressive looks from the coffee shop baristas who can only go home when the last straggler leaves. Done.
7. (optional) Work into the early hours of the morning and go to sleep or watch the sunrise with a smile on your face. Knowing that, after some serious editing, the thing you've just created will be totally worth the punch-in-the-face reminder that you're not 19 anymore. 

I might post a more...practical...list next week. Because it really is possible. Promise.

Is this how life looks for you sometimes? What do you do to make time for yourself in the middle of your responsibilities? 

Mom Vs. Mom - The line that divides

I'm going to do it! I'm going to take the plunge and address one of the big areas of "competition" between moms who stay home and moms who ... for lack of a better term ... work. Don't slay SAHM-ers, I'm not finished yet.

So last night was dreadful. My 2 yr. old son who I fondly refer to as Peter Pan not only forgot his fairy dust and crash landed on the concrete but he kept me awake all night with a stomach bug that had me opening windows in between diaper blow outs. I'll spare you the horror. Needless to say, the four hours of sporadic sleep I was able to eek out leaves me with a mind-numbing need for Starbucks. (and air freshener, Lysol, and some hand sanitizer)

Herein lies #1 of the Mom vs. Mom debacle:  At least SAHMs get to stay home after a night like last night.

DON'T THROW ROTTEN TOMATOES! I'm not finished.

SAHMs, I'm speaking to you. Please. Help. Me.

We love to compete with our: "well, at least you get to get away from diaper blow outs and go to work" or the, "at least you get to stay in your yoga pants and guzzle coffee without having to don makeup and go to work pretending like you're A+".

The reality is, in either situation, we're both exhausted and we both have to put on an act. Neither of us gets to drink our coffee leisurely and crawl back into bed. We both have to face the music of someone screaming our name over and over. For you, it's the children, for me it's--adults.

Why do I want SAHMs help?

Please help erase the line that we've drawn in the sand. Over the years of validating the SAHM and their critically important role and the WORK they do on a daily basis, sometimes us WOHMs feel like we've been lumped into the group of liberal minded workaholics who's fulfillment is themselves. Therefore, for Work-Outside-the-Home-Moms, we aren't able to go to mom support groups, go online and find helpful articles to reinforce our role as a working mom trying to prioritize their Lord, husband/leader, and children while working to make a living, and we don't get much empathy because hey--we get to do that morning Starbucks run that SAHMs don't.

Please help.

Help debunk this ridunkulous line. You work, I work, we all work, on four hours of sleep. It's just like having a different place of employment. It doesn't make the exhaustion, stress, joint-aches, and coffee-consumption any different. And sometimes, SAHMs, we WOHMs could use some encouragement to know you see us as ... a Mom. Not a career woman. Not a woman who is trying to step outside of her husband and wear pants (trust me, doesn't work well, and I'm all about traditional marriage, partnership, and leadership). We need to know that you're there for us, SAHMs. Recognizing that we can't all stay home and invest in our children in the same way. That the single moms who have to work and see their kiddos for 2 hours a day, that the moms of ministry-workers and missionaries sometimes have to help support that by carrying a career, and that we're not all out to live above our means and therefore sacrifice our kids for an affluent, double income home.

Please don't leave us out in the cold. Pray for the WOHMs (and Work-at-home-moms!) at your MOPS meeting today, or as you wipe the vomit from your son's little mouth and know some of us had to leave him with Gramma and it's ripping our own insides out. Band together with us. Validate that we too want to herald the Scripture: "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".

Together we can do this! We can support each other, pray for each other, validate each other's pains and agonies that, while different, are so very much alike. And hopefully, in the end, our banding together will produce a variety of little personalities being raised to honor and serve the Lord in ways we could never fathom or imagine.

And as I drink my Starbucks, I'll breathe a prayer for you--that at some point as you juggle kids and screams and chores and errands and so on, that your coffee doesn't go cold in the process. Here's to you SAHMs. Be well!

Have any of you felt the mom vs. mom competition? And the mysteries and myths that create a dividing line?

Kids are Messy

And let's face it...Adults are messy too.

Life. Is. Messy.

That may or may not be my kitchen sink. Um, I mean, of course it isn't. I totally found that picture online....

Ahem.

Moving on.

Life is messy and part of being a mom is cleaning it up. You can debate this all you want, and no, I'm not saying that if you love Jesus you'll do ALL the cleaning at your house. But practically speaking...most of the moms I know do a lot of the cleaning.

A funny thing happens when you stay home from your job to take care of your kids. All the sudden that beautiful, wonderful theory about husbands and wives sharing the housework...Yeah, that gets harder to justify even to the most caring husband when both of you know that you are home all day. That's the simple fact. You may be just as busy, but you are home and in the mind of a man, that means you should be able to do more of the cleaning than you used to.

It's taken me almost two years at home to finally accept that theory. (And disclaimer: yes, my husband does still help around the house, especially if I ask him too. He loves me very much, he's not a chauvinist, and I'm cool with this. Okay? Okay.)

But look at those dishes in the sink. Do you want to know the incredible, awe-inspiring secret of adulthood (and maybe especially motherhood/womanhood) that I've learned?

No one else is going to do those dishes (unless I ask for help, which is okay sometimes). But as a whole, this is true. They are not going to do themselves either. They're not going to disappear if I leave them overnight.

Ants may appear. But the dishes? They're not going anywhere.

So I just have to take a deep breath, put on some music or a TV show I like to make it feel like "fun" and do it.

That's the great secret to SAHM housecleaning that I have learned. Just clean it. Oh, I hear you. You need a system, you need to make a list, blah, blah, blah. I've said it all a million times. But this is the cleanest overall my house has ever been (haha, okay, except my sink this morning. It's Monday, okay?) and that is what I have learned. We are the great list-makers. Strategizers. Pinteresters that find "easy ways to clean in ten minutes a day."

We need to simplify a little and learn to just do what needs to be done.

But that's probably one of those truths that has to sink in for everyone individually. I can't talk you into it. But seriously, I'm right. ;)

Here are some other random things I've discovered in my quest for a cleaner house:

1. I read somewhere that if you can do it in less than 2 minutes, do it immediately. This includes picking up trash from the floor (Why is there trash on the floor anyway? Anyone else's kids struggle with the trashcan concept...?), unloading the dishwasher (gasp!!!), putting dirty plates in the sink, and tons of other things.

2. Make it fun. Listen to music while you do the dishes. Or one of my favorites, make folding laundry a naptime activity. When the boys go to sleep, I turn on my favorite TV show and fold laundry. It seriously feels relaxing and like "me" time even though I'm doing laundry. Crazy, I know. And seriously? Since I started doing this I am caught up on laundry. For weeks now I haven't gotten more than a load or two behind.

Cue gasps here. Try this one and let me know if it works for you!

3. Get the kids involved. Mine are 19 months and almost 4 (in 8 days!!!). They are old enough to learn how to help with some of the housework. Which ties into the next one....

4. Stop being such a perfectionist. Fellow SAHM....Listen, okay? We are not judging your house. Your friends? They aren't judging it either. No one is going to eat off of your floors anyway.

HAHAHA. Okay, yeah, they are. But it's good for them, right?

What I'm saying is...Let your kids help. And DO NOT CLEAN BEHIND THEM. If your three year old wants to swiffer the living room...Let him. He'll clean at least some of the dirt and dog hair. You can do it tomorrow if you really want it "Mom clean." But for today? Just be thankful its better than it was. And know that in not cleaning behind your kids you are teaching them that they are enough. That they can do it. That they can make a contribution that matters. (Side note: When I get my kids involved like this, they behave better. Odd...)

5. Know you aren't alone. This is pretty much my new motto for most areas of life. Someone struggles the same way you do, in every single struggle you have. Satan would like to lie to you and make you feel alone and like a weirdo. Do not let him. Other moms are like you. Encourage them. Encourage yourself. Get better at cleaning if this is a struggle for you like it has been for me. You'll be so much happier and it IS important (no matter how many cute posters tell you to only snuggle your kids and never clean...That's a rant for another day...). So don't give up. Don't make excuses. But don't beat yourself up either.

How about y'all? Any thoughts on cleaning from other SAHMs? WAHMS and WOHMS, are you shocked that we struggle with cleaning too? Anyone have tips you want to share?

A Weekday Adventure

While many view the WAHM life as the perfect compromise between work and family, it can be hard to find that balance and maintain it. But it is possible!

When new mamas approach me for advice on how to make this attainable, I have plenty of practical advice for them (this is a post for another day). But the most important thing, as I cannot emphasize enough, is to set boundaries between work and family. You're not doing anyone any favors if your mind is always in another place.

I will preface this post by saying there are many days when I fail at this. I have one foot in the door of mothering and one foot still thinking about a blog post I need to write for work, head up in the clouds brainstorming a story, or nose glued to my inbox waiting for an answer.

But on Wednesday, I set boundaries. I finished all of my work, turned off social media, and I took my baby girl out on a fun adventure. Everything else would just have to wait. :)

The day started at one of our favorite places...

There, AG's charming smile earned her a taste of delicious carrot from a farmer from whom we bought some fresh rainbow chard, broccoli, new potatoes to roast with some rosemary, and our favorite:

With strawberries this delicious, can you blame us for sampling some post haste?

From there, we headed to the playground on that side of town. 

 

Homegirl had a blast and worked up an appetite, so we packed up a lunch.

Her new favorite obsession is picnics. She asks for one for every meal, every day. 

Our picnic had a few guests...

They practically charged us when they saw us approaching the table with our food. AG loved it!

After lunch, it was time for a long, well-deserved nap and then to the gym where mama worked up a sweat and AG got to play with fun toys and good friends. And when her daddy came home from work, she couldn't wait to tell him all about her day. 

So the moral of the story is, it was a day we'll both remember for a long time. It was so good to put aside work and be intentional about spending uninterrupted time with my baby girl. Something I need to take advantage of more often before it's too late!

What are your favorite things to do with your kids/on your days off?

Are you like me and need to work on regular breaks from your "screens"?