LOST IN MOMMY WORLD

Not sure if it’s all the cold medication that I have been on this week, but I haven’t really been feeling myself at all. I just have been feeling so tired and can and can’t put my finger on the problem. As women, mothers, and working professionals, we sometimes don’t give ourselves that time to “just be.”
I haven’t really found that time; I haven’t really mastered the art of finding that time for me yet. It’s like the routine of it all is getting too routine. Not sure if you understand me. I am all about the schedule, making sure I have enough time to do everything I need to do in my household for my kids and my husband; everything is on a schedule so much so that sometimes that schedule becomes the catalyst for me feeling down because there’s just no room to do anything else but stay on schedule.
I know exactly what is going to happen when I get home. I walk through the door and I walk the dog, if dinner has not yet been started I help with that, I feed the girls, feed myself, bathe the girls, bathe myself, clean up, do whatever chores need to be done, sit for a while to see what’s on television and off to bed. I wake up, bathe, get ready for work, do some more chores, get bottles ready for morning feeds, go to work, and work all day and then go back home. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I don’t love my life or that there is something wrong with all that I have just stated, but what I am saying is that sometimes it just becomes too much. Sometimes, you just feel like if you had a real life pause button you would push it, just so you could get those 10 minutes of quiet time before life hits you in the face again.
With two little ones at home it’s really easy to get lost in mommy world. You kind of lose your identity and just become mom. Now I have always been the first to say that just because you become a mother that doesn’t mean that you have to stop being who you are. I just kind of have lost my way in recent days. I tend to fall into patterns and just forget that I have to take care of me in order to be able to take care of everyone else. It’s okay to say I need five minutes, ten minutes, hell half an hour to just find your center, your peace, so that you can deal with everything else. Sometimes it’s something as simple as asking for 30 minutes when I get home, I jump in the shower and I just wash the day away. Then when I come out I am a bit more refreshed. It’s hard raising children, no matter if you are a stay at home mom or a working out of the home mom like myself, we all go through our struggles of wanting to be everything for everybody yet not being everything to ourselves.
For some reason, I never really thought about this part of motherhood when I was thinking about how it would be to have a child. No one really tells you that at times you feel like running in the other direction, or that sometimes you really love it when you get home and the kids are asleep or that at some point your children will annoy you. For some reason whenever I talked to women about motherhood they always described it like sunshine and gumdrops, far from it. It’s okay to say my kids get on my nerves at time. Yeah I said it, they do and you know your kids get on your nerves too at times. I have not met a parent that doesn’t have that “pulling their hair out of their head” story because they’re so frustrated. It’s normal, it happens and though I tell myself that that I am normal I still tend to get down on myself for feeling this way. Like for some reason I am a bad person for feeling like I want time for me, time to just be me and not mommy. As if once I gave birth, I gave up that opportunity. It is true that once you decide to become a parent you do sacrifice something and you do become someone else, but the person at the center of yourself that led you to become that parent doesn’t change and therefore needs to be celebrated. I have to find time to take care of myself and parents out there have to find time to just be themselves. I feel this makes you better as a parent. I know that if I am not stressed or tired or down I am a better mother to my daughters because I am present at that moment.

P.S. I would list things that I think would help ease the stress but I think everyone is different... the point is the journey to the balance. But if you most know for me, time to myself is the greatest gift I can give to me. I wake up extra early each day so that I can watch the news and have my cup of coffee this gets my day off to a good start, for some it's exercise and others going out with friends. Finding what keeps you balanced is different for everyone.