Summer, when you are a Stay At Home Mom, can be alot of fun. You can take the kids to a park, or better yet a sprinkler park, or maybe a museum or shopping and its bliss. Well, it used to be bliss. When you have babies to pre-schoolers (depending on the child ) you can have fun for a minimal amount of work. Backyard play is awesome! A walk around the neighborhood is totally cool! Making cookies or some other snack is fun!
My children no longer fit into that category. They are the dreaded BIG KIDS of the playground. Usually they will watch where they are going but more than likely I am getting the stink eye from some moms because I am reading or playing with my phone and *gasp* I am not watching my kids!! Add in a team sport (like SWIM) and the summer is spent schlepping kids from one thing to another. Now, add in sleeping in and 9:am Violin lessons and you have yourself lots of stress...and shouting to "come on"...and lots of "in a minute"s. Last summer was AWFUL like that...all I did was shuffle children, deal with requests for snacks and food and there was no real time for me or trips that I wanted to take. I became very depressed and I desperately needed to be validated...hence the job...and hence the quitting of the job because "my family needs me...yay!"
Enter the 3rd day of Summer vacation and we are all falling into the same patterns as last year...with a bonus of renovating bits the house...and I already feel myself becoming a mother that I don't want to be. But it is very hard to try to change the people in this house since they all have attitudes that I think are genetic - from their mother - and age appropriate. So how do we change an awful pattern of behavior? My first reaction is to CONTROL the situation and make it clear who is in charge. However, these kids know how to break down the armor and how to ask just the right questions to make me question myself (genetics from their father). Another way is to tell them X, Y and Z have to happen before we can do A, B and C. Sometimes that works...sometimes it becomes a complete mess, with children distracting me because they have to do D right now!!!!
Since the control thing is not working (right now anyway), the next thing in my arsenal is just taking time for me anyway and making it a priority...except when I do this at home the kids can find me and act desperate enough that I will stop what I am doing and deal with their emergency ("I can't find my new sweatband and I can't go to bed without it!!"). Clearly none of the old ways are working...the kids are bigger and they should "suck it up and be more independent" but I LIKE the fact they still need me and want me...as The Hubby put it "you are their world" and he is right. Being with them 24/7 and knowing all the drama that is contained within, "their world" shouldn't want to drop kick them to another one because she needs some time to herself that isn't potty related. I have asked the kids to give me space and that has also had good results (6 out of 10) but it works best when I can say "watch a movie and have some popcorn and don't bother me"...which also ends up with lots of popcorn on the floor, the asking for more popcorn, and the inevitable fight over who is sitting where.
My best solution has been to leave the house. But where do you go and for how long? Since I have big kids I don't have to pay the babysitter...I can leave them at home. I don't want to leave them for 4 hours alone but 1 or 2 shouldn't be a problem. Going to the Gym for a workout has been my solution so far. I started dancing again at my NIA class and I have been getting on a treadmill or other machines to bring my heart rate up. My feet and ankles hurt and I am a bit more tired than I want to be but I am liking it for the first time in a long time. And there are no interruptions (woohoo!). When I get home I can be totally "on call". WIN!
In order for this to be even more successful I need to get back into a meditative space that says "this is my time" instead of rushing to end it so I can hurry home. Being in that state lets me come down inside so I can talk to my inner voice and be inspired or just remember what is on the calendar for the day. I need to remember to take a deep breath before getting out of the car and watch my steps as I enter the building. I need to stretch and do a bit of a warm up before starting so I can bring into my day the Divine that I know is in there. This combined with the Web-Slinging has been good and hopefully I will stick with it and make it work so I can have my time and be healthier as a bonus. Its something I need and want for ME. Every Mom needs time away to ground and re-focus...when we are intense on our kids we lose sight of ourselves. The hope is that this will ground me and I will be the Mother that I want to be this summer and that will be good for the kids and hubby too.
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