Mother's Day

Mother's Day starts in the wee hours when our three year old girl comes to find me and only me. In my daze of sleep I desperately utter "get her, get her, please I just can't" to my husband, also sleep-dazed. He tries to intercept her before she sees my body in bed, but his body can't move quickly without warming up, and I hear him grunt. I think his back has gone out, and her cries for mommy carry down the hall as he takes her back to her bed.

I think for a moment that I will cover my ears and return to the sleep I very much want and need, but before I finish the thought, I am throwing back the covers to go make sure all is well.

"Is your back okay?" It is.

"Come here sweetie." I sit her on the toilet with her arms around my legs until the trickling stops. Those same arms wrap around my neck, and my bare legs walk both our weights to my side of the bed.

She always wants to be as close as possible to me. We both get into our regular cuddle position, an unspoken understanding of exactly what to do. We face each other on our sides. She lowers her body so that her head is at my chest. And she starts her work on my arms, the same stroking up and down that she has done since the beginning.

I am stuck on the feeling of exhaustion. Knowing I won't be able to get enough sleep leads to panic, which makes way for anger.

"Happy mothers day to me..." I mutter.

Immediately I feel shame. I am both mother and child. In my exhaustion, the child in me has taken over.

Just yesterday morning I was holding her close in the same position, kissing her and telling her how much I love cuddling with her. And now here I am putting off the opposite energy. This little child is probably confused.

I atone to the Great Spirit and take a breath. I choose to be mother. I pull her close and kiss her hair. The birds sing outside the open window. Light is fading the dark. She eventually falls back into sleep. I hear the sounds of our coffee pot downstairs. 5am.

I am not tired anymore.

Journaling Breakdown: What's Got to Give?

Here is a journaling free-write of an issue I am having. I have broken down the journaling with comments to show how writing helps me.

I started writing with the feeling that "something has got to give."

Here is the beginning of the free-write where I dump out everything I am feeling:

I realize I am a total cliche in this predicament. I am a "stay-at-home mom" who also runs a business and is trying to be everything even though it's not possible and there aren't enough hours in the day.

I made a commitment to being what is commonly referred to as a "stay at home mom" until my kids are both in kindergarten. Grady will start kindergarten in the fall, and Maeva will start preschool. Next year she will be at preschool for three hours on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

So at the time of writing this, I will be a SAHM for another two years and three and a half months. But who's counting?

This commitment I have made is one I feel very strongly about. There is nothing else I want more than to give them my presence and guidance and being during this time of their lives...

...except maybe for some alone time to work and build and create and think.

I have work tasks for our business. I have managed to delegate and let go of tasks, but there are still things I am responsible for in our business. I do all the accounting and marketing and proposals and website and systems development and planning. I set the goals and the vision and the plan. I have tried to maintain the higher level things that are relevant to my native genius, my interests, my calling and my authentic soul purpose. But we are not quite ready to hire someone to take on some of the bookkeeping and administrative tasks that are currently bogging me down.

And here is the crazy part.... I have 3 hours of scheduled work time on Mondays when my brother comes to watch Maeva while Grady is at preschool. 3 hours!

But I can't seem to bring myself to schedule more childcare because then that would interfere with my commitment to being with the kids all day.

So I am doing both. SAHM and business owner with only 3 hours of work time actively scheduled each week. Ludicrous! I also do not schedule any time for personal errands. I am in business with my husband and we do not have any scheduled time for meetings or discussions.

Kevan and I end up talking about work at 8 or 9 pm after the kids have gone to bed and my brain is in its worst time of day for decision-making or emotional regulation or problem-solving. Actually, it's the time of day when I tend to create problems. We often end up frustrated and angry.

Other times, we let the kids watch tv just to get in a quick conversation, but Maeva then comes and finds us and asks for strawberries or crackers or some other snack, so the whole purpose of tv time giving us time is out the window. I end up feeling frustrated and unable to just get out one thought or idea or point, and I act as the mom, woman, wife and business woman that I do not want to be.

I end up working at night or on the weekends.

This is just a snapshot of where we are right now. It feels like survival mode.

This is the point where I have "dumped" out all the feelings of what is not working and start to have realizations. The problems have been flushed out and the emotional energy has been released, so now the root of the issue comes into focus.

And when I look at it all, I see that my vibe is survival mode, and so I am likely getting more of survival mode. I also see that I am creating this problem. By being so strict in my commitment to being a full time mom, and also my inability to give up some of my work tasks, I have created an impossible situation.

Something has to give.

I have read all the books and listened to all the podcasts. I know what I am doing. I see that I am doing it. And yet I continue to do it. It keeps me stuck. It's a form of self-sabotage. My stubborn will is so stuck on this idea that I can do it all and that it will just be for a little while longer... It steals the joy right out of the whole thing.

The whole reason I want to be a stay at home mom is to give them my presence and guidance and being. But when I am operating in this way, I don't think that's what they are fully getting. So I'm missing the whole point.

This next part of my journal entry, solutions start to come up.

I know that we need to hire in our business. Kevan and I both know that is the next step and we are ready in every way except financially. We need one large project lined up before we make that hire. So I am trying to gear up now for that hire, but that takes time too.

I think I need to consider more child care, even viewing it as temporary. I would add a day for Maeva so that it would be Mondays and Wednesday mornings, but then I feel sad that I only have one morning a week just me and her. It's like I am not willing to budge, and so I suffer.

Here I start to bring attention to how it will feel:

When I think of having two 3-hour days of scheduled time each week, I feel spaciousness, energy flow, relief, freedom. Those are the feelings I am after in life. So this tells me this just might be the very thing I need.

And then I go deeper into actionable solutions:

I also need to have regular meetings scheduled with Kevan.

If all of my responsibilities are pegs, they each need a time slot. Right now I have way more pegs than slots.

My options are:

1. Keep the pegs, make more slots

2. Let go of some pegs, keep the same slots

3. Let go of some pegs, make more slots

I like the idea of options 1 and 3. I need more slots. Time slots. And I will continue to delegate and let go of tasks that do not light me up, require me or align with my core genius.

By the end of journaling, I feel lighter and clearer and I know what steps to take. I will let you know how it goes.

Just Doing It

You know how when you haven't spoken to a good friend in a while and you have so much to catch up on that you think you'll need a long time to talk, and since you don't have that much time at any given moment, you just don't call.

And time just continues to pass without talking to this friend, even though you think of calling them all the time. Instead of just a quick ten minute call to say hello and I am thinking of you, you don't ever call at all.

That's how I feel about this blog.

So many times in the last four plus years I have opened up this wix site to write something, but it always feels like I have to catch people up. Ha. Catch.. who... up, exactly?

I think we just gotta make the call. Even if we only have five minutes.

And we just gotta hit publish.

This reminds me of something else. Last Sunday I went out for a walk with our dog Sage. And suddenly I was running. I ran about two miles. I have been wanting to run again, talking about running again, but not running. But suddenly there I was - running. I don't know how it happened really. I suppose being in my running shoes and already on the trail walking made it feel a little easier to pull the trigger on taking the action than if I was at home in my socks trying to amp myself up to "go for a run." So the same exact thing happened this evening. And now I guess I am running again.

And hey, now I am writing here again, too.

I suppose there is something about a spontaneous, unpolished and unprepared action. A quick call. A random blog post. A surprise run.

Imperfect. Unplanned. But enough.