Teenage Girls

by | Jan 15, 2019 | Parenting, Teenagers, Truth-Telling

Teenage girls just show up overnight in secret while you were sleeping.

I was once a teenager too and hopefully when your teenage time passes our relationship will still be intact.

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Intentional New Year’s

by | Jan 8, 2019 | Affirmations, Grounding, Journal Writing, Parenting, Self-Care, Tips and Techniques

Did you get any dreaming time during the holidays?

Did you get any time to process 2018 and think about what you might want to invite into 2019?

So we have made it to the first full week of the New Year. The kids are back in school, we are back to work and our life is suppose to just fall back into normal right?

Well it doesn’t usually feel that way for me. Besides the fact that we homeschool, and my hubby is back at work, the transition from the Winter Holidays into the let’s face it, the often disgusting next few months is a hard one.

We live in Maine, so there is snow coming, and this year we have had snow and cold weather since before Thanksgiving, so I don’t know about you but I am feel the end of February, beginning of March tiredness of winter, and we are still just getting ready for a lot more.

The house feels like it needs another deep cleaning even though I did one before the holidays, now that we have all spent over a week here, it feels like a lot of pick up needs to happen again, AND there are new things to put away and organize from gift giving.

So how do we do all this and not get depressed or feel put upon? How do we even begin to think about New Year’s Resolutions (and in my opinion the top of our lists as mothers should simply be GETTING MORE SLEEP – and to hell with anything else)? I mean are you even on board with packing lunches and resuming all the kid activities?

Did you get any dreaming time during the holidays?

Did you get any time to process 2018 and think about what you might want to invite into 2019?

Nope?

I mean we are mothers right, and unless you designed some time (and maybe even if you did) it didn’t happen and now here it is the 8th of January and what the hell?

So here is my invitation to you. Have your favorite drink. Coffee, tea, water, wine, beer I don’t care, but grab something that tastes good to drink and if you need to go lock yourself in the bathroom to do this I am certainly not one to judge!

But take a few moments to just breathe. Don’t do anything. Don’t rush or think about the next thing. And if you can’t keep your mind from racing then grab pen and paper or the note feature on your phone and just jot down everything going on in your brain until you can let it all go.

Now listen. Can you hear anything? If you are lucky enough to have silence, just soak it in. And if you can hear the kids watching TV in the next room that’s fine too.

Now if there is something you want to bring into 2019 it might make itself known now. And if it doesn’t then let’s just repeat this again tomorrow.

A few minutes alone. It can be in the bathroom or while taking a shower, or hiding in the car or pretending to still be asleep. But try and grab a few minutes every day and see what happens.

I think that’s a big enough resolution for us. What about you?

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Do You Talk to Your Partner Enough?

by | Dec 11, 2018 | Parenting, Truth-Telling

Do you feel like you talk to your partner enough? 

I know from experience that when I don’t make time for my relationship with my hubby, everything goes to shit.  Literally and figuratively. 

I am not about to tell you what is going to work for you and your partner.  But I know from experience that when I don’t make time for my relationship with my hubby, everything goes to shit.  Literally and Figuratively.

And it can be so easy to just let things slide.  To not take turns sharing how your day went, to letting the kids needs and schedules come before your own.  To not go out on a date or ask for what you need or turn the TV off with enough time to spare to actually say hi to this person who is on this journey with you.

I have felt just as selfish asking for  time and money to go on a date with my spouse as I have felt about spending time and money on myself.  If you have signed up for my newsletter than you have read some of the creative ways my hubby and I have come up with to go on “dates” without actually having to leave our kids or get a babysitter.

Lately reading aloud a shared book at night has created a good connection between the two of us and is a great way to wind down and get ready to sleep.

But it is not easy.  It is not easy to keep showing up with our vulnerable heart in our hands and share.

Esther Perel has helped.  Brene Brown has helped more than she can imagine.  Friends have helped by watching our kids and letting us sneak away or being a safe ear when we have needed to work things out.

We had a wonderful marriage counselor in a time of crisis.  We have kept our parents out of our relationship by and large because that has worked for us.  We regularly make time to be just us.

But it is hard.  Sometimes I don’t want to have another uncomfortable conversation.  I don’t want to have to share how I am feeling, I just want to be pissed off, mad, etc.  I certainly don’t always want to be the first to apologize.

But I do.  We both do.  Because at the end of the day the kids will all have left home and it will just be us.  As we tell our daughters all the time about their relationships with each other, at the end of the day it will just be them and it will just be us and you have to make sure those relationships stay strong.  

Is this something we always have worked out?  Hell No. It’s like parenting, just when we think we have it figured out the rules change.  The situation change, we change. But would I want to take this ride with anyone else?

No.  Which is why my relationship with my partner comes first.  Right after my relationship with myself and right before my relationship with all of my girls.  

Do you feel like you talk to your partner enough?

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Intentional Holidays

by | Dec 4, 2018 | Parenting

How can you take the stress out of the holiday season?

It’s that time of year again. When our kids go slightly crazy in anticipation of the big day, of getting presents galore, of time off from school of spending time with you. Doing all the holiday things, and whatever that means to your family, whether it be parties, decorating trees, caroling, watching football games, whatever the holiday season means to you and yours.

But it also feels like a super easy recipe for disaster with sugar at every corner and therefore the temptation to overindulge, both for us and our cute little kids that then suddenly turn into brats. It is a bit like the holiday parade I was part of this year as a Girl Scout leader. Almost all of my troop was there, a total of 7 girls only two of which were mine. We were all riding on a float that they had helped decorated with 37 other girls from other troops in the area. What made it a leader’s nightmare was the pick up as in this particular parade it just stops on Main Street and the parents all come to the float and want to take their kids, and as you can image 44 girls getting picked up at once on a multi-sided float can make leaders who need to see parents eyeballs super antsy.

It worked out well this year as there was a single exit from the float and I had prepped all the parents and the girls that I had to see their eyeballs before they could walk away with their girls. And as near as I could tell all the other leaders had similar experiences with their parents. Because we prepared them and the girls ahead of time for what we expected to have happened at the float.

But what about the craziness of the holidays? Can you prepare your family in advance to have a smoother time? Can you prepare self-care for yourself around it so that you can be vigilant (like when there are 44 girls on a float that need to stay seated while you cruise down Main Street) when you need to be but also get some time to relax and enjoy the holidays too?

How can you do this? Well here are some things that I have done in the past and am trying out this year to help navigate through this season of light.

Every year my kids and I sit down and come up with a list of activities we want to do usually from Thanksgiving through Christmas. You can see my post about it last year here. What is great about this is that I get a chance to find out what each of my kids want to do and what is important to them, so if say nobody wants to go see the Nutcracker again (this year) we don’t have to go and do that and instead of time to try some other things, like going to a historical 19th century Christmas celebration, and going to see Christmas in Arendelle that a library we have never been to is hosting. I like to put the list on post-it notes and then we can move them around on the calendar as it works, as sledding in the snow is weather contingent and we have already watched a Christmas movie as a family this year.

So step one is being really conscious of what we say yes to schedule wise. Right now I have all the Saturdays between now and Christmas scheduled with an activity, and we know the approximate date we are going to go and get our Christmas tree. Any additional invites will be filtered through the already busy Saturdays and it can be easier to say no that we already have plans than sometimes just saying no.

But I do try and keep us busy just before Christmas, because that countdown to Christmas morning can be so frenzied and that’s just my 5 and 6 year old. That is the one weekend where we currently have an event on Saturday and a party on Sunday. With Christmas being a Tuesday this year I am hoping my hubby can work from home on Christmas Eve and if the weather is good I can keep the kids outside most of the time.

I also have the ability to take the week before Christmas off, so I am not working after December 14th until the 2nd of January because it’s just too crazy with little ones, and frankly in 5 years they will be old enough that I could work then if I wanted too. I want to enjoy the delight of Christmas while I still can before they are too old to care.

I also try and take care of Christmas cards and the like early. We make a holiday calendar for family and I usually build that on Thanksgiving weekend so that it is ready to be ordered when the sale is good and then they get mailed out as soon as I have them. I often also write the Christmas letter and cards and order the photos around Thanksgiving too. This year for Thanksgiving we were super tired so I didn’t worry about working on that and instead just really focused on rest and relaxation with my family. But I will get the cards out early so that they are done. I totally think my friend that did New Years Cards last year had it great as well she didn’t even try and get them out for Christmas and that took a lot of pressure off.

I have also been working on Christmas gift shopping since probably July. My kids know that they have to me know what they want from Santa by Halloween so the elves have time to make what they want. None of this last minute request stuff. Because I use Swagbucks to pay for a lot of Christmas, not quite everything is in the house yet, but most of is and I know how much is left to order at the beginning of December.

That just leaves some food shopping and maybe a few things for stockings. But I have even already been talking to the family about what we want for Christmas dinner and have gotten a few of the things for the relish tray type idea for lunch already squirreled away in the cupboard. By working ahead I can spread the cost as well as feel less stressed and I can just focus on doing what the kids want to do as we wait for the day.

How are you preparing for the season? Have you thought about what you are going to say to any rude relatives or acquaintances? Have you thought about how much space you really have in your schedule that you can hold social events? Have you gotten the teacher/scout leaders/postal worker gifts sorted or at least have ideas? I like to get my kids involved in the making of those things so we can work on them together and they are also part of the gift giving process.

How can you take the stress out of the holiday season?

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

In the Blink of an Eye

by | Nov 13, 2018 | Parenting

Now this person that we have known their whole lives is someone else entirely and they didn’t ask us we didn’t give our permission it just happened in what felt like a blink of an eye.

Years go by

In the blink of an eye

We don’t always notice

the little things that change

because we are too busy cleaning up the muck

and gross bodily fluids of being a grown up

caring for these small little people

so they too can become a grown up

and clean up the muck of the

messes we make in our lives

Starting with birth

and then just going from there

We all have to wipe our own butts

at least once a day

Life is messy

and tiring

But we all know that being

exhausted at the end of the day

is often a recipe for sleep

And sleep is a good thing

that surrendering

to the unknown

the letting go

of everything

and just being in a state of not being

Often as parents

the only time we can fully relax

and breathe a sigh

is when our kids have abandoned

themselves to sleep

From sleeping babies

To snoring teenagers

we can often begin to rest easy

to unwind

to congratulate ourselves

On keeping everyone alive

Truly alive

for another day

another day to grow and play

Another day to just be

But in those minute days

where we play and pick up and clean up

we sometimes miss the changes

the length of the limbs as they grow out

How the brain upgrades

usually, while we are asleep

and now this person that we have

known their whole lives

Is someone else entirely

And they didn’t ask us

we didn’t give our permission

it just happened in what felt like

a blink of an eye

and soon we will be holding

the next generation in our arms

in our hearts

and facing our own

mortality and the

legacies we hope

we are leaving behind

and it all happens in the

blink of an eye

and the small moments

of mess cleaning up.

Chase Young is the founder of The Mommy Rebellion a place for judgment-free parenting.  She’s created a place to get tips, tools and support for what it is truly like to be a mother, stories from the trenches that show you you’re not alone.  Tips that real mothers use.  Tools to give to yourself and to your parenting friends to feel more focused, have more patience and energy, and feel less tired and snappy .  
You can follow Chase here on this blog, sign up for her newsletter here and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.