Seasons Change

by | Oct 23, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care, Truth-Telling

Seasons change and whether we want it to happen or not so do our kids and ourselves. Transition periods suck. I don’t think they get any less sucky the older we get. I think we begin to learn that this is part of the rhythms of life.

Whether we want them to or not and so do our kids. Sometimes it seems like the difficult stage they are in lasts for millennia because once they morph into an easier stage we don’t tend to notice it has even happened. We are too busy either dealing with another kid in a similar difficult stage, or the ease of this new stage is just enjoyed without our really noticing it and then the next thing we know, we are back there again, back to another slightly newer difficult stage.

Most of these difficult stages are actually transition phases between one part of development and the next. What is funny (not really) is that this continues into our adulthood, but can at times be harder to see.

My business coach has to keep reminding me that moving to a new house is like having a baby, it takes time after you have moved in to really get your roots down. I keep thinking I should know this because this is not my first move, this is my fourth move in Maine and I have moved many, many times before. But yet each
time it brings up new things, even if you are moving the same stuff. Even if you have moved before, moved with the same kids/family before it always brings up stuff, well after the move. Even if you think you are done processing, the rest of your family may not be.

So these difficult stages keep happening to us, even as adults. Sometimes they seem random and unfair, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the need to start a new job in a new city. It is like stages of grief, you never really know when they are going to hit you again, even though you feel like gone through it before.

But some of them are a bit more predictable. The birth of a new baby, getting married, getting divorced, these are obvious periods of transition and with them growth.

Less obvious ones include the time after those things, the periods after you have the big date, the big vacation you have waited forever for, when you are making a career change, starting a new major change in your lifestyle, getting a new pet or losing one. These are all periods of transition that we tend to ignore
or not realize they have as much of an impact as they do.

Perhaps that is where the 20/20 hindsight comes from?

Autumn has arrived here in Maine, today it is not getting above 50 degrees and it is still September. However in two more days it will be 70 again, classic New England fall transition. Because of this and having just moved and getting ready to publish this book, and do a lot of visibility and community growth as part of preparing for the launch of this book, I feel like I am in one of those icky transition periods.

My body feels different to me, and I am fighting the need to exercise and sleep and rest with equal measure. My emotions are a bit all over the show and I am finding it easy to snap at people (though most of it is staying in my head and not coming out of my mouth).

There is the inevitable need to prepare for winter. To work on our property and prepare for upcoming snow falls that will happen all to soon. To build a shed to be able to store the tools over winter and to actually want to be outside exploring and enjoying the fall weather before we have to bundle up our bodies to stay warm.

There is also the drawing in. Most of my Christmas shopping is done except for the Santa requested gifts. There are knit along and quilt-a-longs I want to take part of as we spend more time inside and less time outside. There is the need to gather food and supplies and books in case we get snowed in. Even though we
probably will not, there is the biological drive to do this this time of year.

All this while feeling icky. While upholding new boundaries around my work, while becoming more visible in my business.

Transition periods suck. I don’t think they get any less sucky the older we get. I think we begin to learn that this is part of the rhythms of life, the ebb and flow but I don’t think it gets any easier to go through because each time it is different. Each time it is less fun. But necessary. It will happen and if you fight against it, it will just take longer. Like a toddler’s tantrum or a preteen waiting for everyone to leave before she decides to talk to you.

I just want to get more sleep. Or knit and sew or just have the world leave me alone. But that’s not what is happening quite yet. I try to carve out time each day for those things to happen. But Monday mornings can be hard as my kids transition back into not interrupting me every five minutes in the morning.

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.

Dancing with the Shadow and Light

by | Oct 18, 2018 | Parenting, Tips and Techniques

Today Andrea Parker, founder of The Rejuvenation Grange shares with us how surrendering to the dance of dark and light emotions can open ourselves up and listen to our inner and outer guides we can elevate and rejuvenate our souls and build bridges to deeper connections.

The last few weeks have been filled with moments of gorgeous light and pulsating darkness.

As humans we easily gravitate towards talking and connecting through the light, the joyous spaces of our life but often struggle with opening up about our shadows, our fears of judgement, our hidden parts that feel unsettled.

The dance between sharing both sides of ourselves can make us feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, BUT when we sink into this dance and open ourselves up and listen to our inner and outer guides we can elevate and rejuvenate our souls and build bridges to deeper connections.

This week I had two wonderful exchanges with my daughter who is almost 12, and definitely in the throws of starting puberty. The first conversation, encompassed talking about the shadow self and the other was an evening of playful dialogue that allowed our silly, joyous and humorous sides to fly freely.

Our evening ritual, which my daughter still asks for and wants deeply, is to lay beside each other and share a Rose (a celebration from the day), a Thorn (a challenge or draining part from the day), and a Bud (something we are looking forward to). We take turns sharing these pieces of our day with each other and they often lead to great conversations.

Last week, my daughter had a nightmare, which was her thorn because it had stuck with her all day. The nightmare was about her and a friend exploring our woods and getting attacked by a rabid coyote whom she had to stomp to death. My daughter is an animal lover so this troubled her greatly and she couldn’t shake the sadness and fear that had been lingering. She was afraid the dream would begin again and became anxious that she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

As a young child I used to have a reoccurring nightmare about my house catching fire and it being surrounded by wolves who chased me through the woods as I escaped the fire. I shared this with her but also relayed that over the years I have come to see the wolf as one of my spirit animals, and learned she is my shadow self, my fear and my fierceness and that when we give space to be curious about our fears instead of anxious we can become partners with it.

So I asked her what she thought the coyote might be trying to teach her, what was she fearful of?

She answered with “ Good question, I don’t know but let me think about that” And then she whispered to me, “ Wisdom from Andrea Parker, Thank You Mommy.” Last night I asked her again if she had time to think about it and her answer was growing up and being alone. But she also said that she had been fearful of this for a long time and now that fear isn’t as intense. I hugged her and let her know that she is surrounded by people that love her and even if they are far away that they will be reachable.

This small connection and exchange of the deeper part of myself and understanding with her, helped her shift her fear to curiosity and be able to sleep that night. Shadow turned into light.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a deep seeded fear of judgement. I hated playing dolls or school or any imaginary play when I was little because I was fearful of being too silly, or not saying the right thing or being misunderstood. So from a young age I stifled my voice and only shared my silly, strange, dark thoughts with those closest to me, those that I felt safe with.

Last night my daughter started writing a story for school.
It needed to be a narrative with an animal from the ecosystem or farm at her school and incorporate ways that the animal aft and is affective by the ecosystem. She lovingly chose a woodchuck.

She loves writing so spent a good hour writing and then shared it with me. It was in the first person and about a woodchuck who lived at the farm but his parents had died when they got chased by a fox and ran into an electric fence. This woodchuck finds himself in the same position but it turns out differently and he ends up in the animal rescue they have at the school.

After she was reading this I asked her if she could imagine herself as a woodchuck and describe things a bit more from his perspective and with his personality. This could have gone really wrong depending on the night, for she may have seen this as me helping or hurting her creativity, (an on going struggle at this age!)

Last night was a good night and this is where my light and her light connected.

We started to riff about what he would say, what he would call things. We pretended to move like a woodchuck and look around as if we were him.

Silliness ensued as we imagined him coming out of his burrow and spotting the beady eyed sharp teeth monster and wishing he hadn’t eaten so much broccoli that morning, as he was plodding through the field.

After we finished laughing so hard our stomachs hurt, I asked her what words would she describe things instead of the words we humans use. This lead to us getting even sillier- the electric fence became the oucher lines and the zapper, tomatoes ( which he didn’t like) were red bursts of sour yuckiness.

This play with words, the humor and silliness opened my heart and fused a beautiful connection between us mother and daughter and healed a part inside myself, that part of me as a little girl who felt misunderstood.

I love being silly but rarely allow myself to be goofy or over the top for fear of how my words would be perceived. Reconnecting to my joker made space for my voice to come through loud and clear, dancing with the shadow and the light.

Hi, I am Andrea Parker, founder of The Rejuvenation Grange.

I am a Master educator, experiential business coach, and soulful facilitator. I am also a mom to a beautiful 12 year old.

I spent the first 12 years of my professional life teaching children through integrating curriculum with play and exploration. This joyful work gave me the skills of getting people where they are and helping them create playfully while facilitating their own transformation. This journey of playing my way to creating a business I loved has been an amazing journey and given me the space and time to:

Explore my creative visions.
Be present in my daughter’s life.
Create my unique daily and weekly rhythm and
Make a difference in the world and make a living doing all of this.

The Rejuvenation Grange was born from my sacred vision of making space for people to explore their playful nature and push themselves to their own fertile edge and create a joyful life and business.

I do this by guiding people to bring their Sacred Creative Vision to the world, design their entrepreneurial playground ( playful and grounded business processes) and coach them to create a vibrant work/life rhythm that feed their souls.

Play With Me

by | Oct 16, 2018 | Parenting, Truth-Telling

There are two types of parents: those that can sit down and immerse themselves in the imaginary games of their children and those like me who really can’t anymore. Which one are you?

The cry of every small and not so small child everywhere. Will someone please play with me. It has become more of an issue lately as my eldest at 12 is less interested in playing imaginary games as each day goes by. My 4 and 6 year old don’t always get along any more and since they have always grown up with two older sisters to interact with them, they tend not to just play with each other.

But this weekend they are going to have to. My older two are going overnight camping for 2 nights and my hubby and I will be home with just the younger two. And we have things we need to do, it can’t just be a play with me all day kind of weekend.

The parents that can sit down and just immerse themselves in the imaginary games of their children and the parents like me who really can’t anymore. I can sing silly songs, and tell stories and read lots of picture books, but please, please, please don’t ask me to play an imaginary game with me. I’d rather deal with sore losers and sore winners while playing a tabletop game than have to play an imaginary one. I guess my brain needs to have some kind of framework. Some kind of rules. Or maybe I have simply been sleep deprived for so long I am not sure what my brain does like anymore.

Or maybe its the limitlessness of it all. Like I could go on wild tangent games for say half an hour but I can’t do it all day or no one is going to have anything to eat. It just isn’t going to work.

I remember reading Fierce Kingdom which is about the three hours in which a mom and her four year old son are hiding at the local zoo because someone is shooting people. And she will do anything to keep her son quiet. I totally get that. While I have not been in that kind of life or death situation with my kids (thank goodness) I have certainly been on public transportation or an airplane and really wanted my kids to be well behaved and quiet. Waiting rooms and checkout lines come to mind. I have been so tired from a nursling that I have let my other kids watch tv way longer than I should have just so I could take a nap. It feels like negotiating with terrorists sometimes.

Maybe this is like mediating and something I just fail at. I have tried meditation for years, off and on. Pretty much anytime Deepak Chopra and Oprah hold another free 21 day meditation I sign up. I think the longest I have made it is about 8 days in a row. I usually end up falling asleep.

I know the research. I know mediation is supposed to be good for my brain and I really should learn how to do it. I prefer walking in the woods or knitting personally. I find my brain stops it’s constant spinning when I do those things. I have yet to find that saying Om

And I am done with judging myself about it. I haven’t found a form of meditation that works for me. Hell, I am still working on a regular morning walking practice, but I figure every day it happens is better than any day it doesn’t and some days sleep is actually more important.

It is the small everyday steps that matter rather than the big juicy moments. Those matter too but our life is made in the small steps. Deciding to get up in the morning, making sure everyone is fed, making sure to take some time for yourself, even if that means binge watching tv or in my case starting a new craft project before I have finished the last one.

These are the things we do. And this weekend is going to be interesting because my hubby and I have some computer projects we want to get done. And yet our younger two will just have each other to play with. I wonder if the neighbor kids will come and play? I am not sure who they like to play with the most, so not having the older kids might matter.

Only time will tell.

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.

I am Stealing Baby Snuggles

by | Oct 9, 2018 | Parenting

I must confess… I am a baby snuggle steal-er! This quiet time is amazing for many reasons and inspires deep reflections. Today I share with you my contemplations from my recent snuggle time.

I have a confession to make. I have been stealing snuggles. From a baby that is not my own. From a cute little boy who is under 3 months old but like my babies is about 15 pounds already.

He is totally not mine. He is a dear friend’s unexpected gift. The beautiful uh-oh that some of us are lucky enough to receive (mine is almost 5, when the hell did that happen? And more importantly how have we managed to keep her alive this long????).

He’s a beautiful healthy fourth child with three older siblings who are close enough in age to my four and more importantly all play together beautifully. So much so that neither I nor their mom minds looking after the other’s kids because it ends up being less work for us, less cranky whining and more kids outside. We joke that we just have to throw food at them from time to time and other than that we can ignore the collective 7 of them.

But I have been stealing snuggles from this wee one. His parents don’t mind. They are both staying at home full time and are happy for anyone else to hold his royal heaviness for a while. When we can visit on weekends my hubby also comes to snuggle this wee one. And I am reminded of that side of my husband that only comes out when holding the very small. He’s got a special smile just for the babies in our lives.

Before the arrival of this community baby, I was considering one more. I approaching 40 so it seemed like a good time to think about if we were fully done having kids or not. But after spending a while with this one and being reminded of everything that comes with a newborn… We’re done. Seriously. We’re good over here!

Because the joy of getting to help look after this small one and getting to visit him on an average of every 10 days or so, is that we only get the best parts. One time I arrived on a day where he had been cluster feeding all night and his mum was more than happy to hand him off, and the timing was such that he took a three hour nap on me. JOY.

He’s a pretty happy baby most of the time from what I gather but I am so very grateful he is not interrupting my sleep. I am also grateful not to have nursing mama brain, as my dear friend complained today when she couldn’t get words out, that she does know words, she’s a writer for goodness sake!

I would happily change his diaper, and I am totally signed up for helping keeping him alive for the next few years (I always found mobile to 3 especially difficult to parent) especially since it will be just for visits and then he will go back home and back to his mother and family.

Especially since he comes with his other siblings that keep my kids super busy playing outside and making stuff.

Especially since right now he usually just needs someone to hold him, bounce or walk him around and now that he is starting to make smiles, someone to make faces with. I intimately know the signs of hunger from a nursling and I am happy to hand him off.

Maybe this is what being a grandparent is like? Getting the snuggles and the sleepy cuddles without all the gross bodily fluids? Getting to see the light in my daughter’s eyes when they get to hold him. Feeling like I am giving back for all the help I asked for and received when mine were small. I really don’t mind. We are happy to help.

And the reward of baby snuggles are more than worth it. I remember how relieving it was to have someone else hold my baby for a while.

Hopefully, we are helping to provide breaks to this family. And it’s not really just our selfish desire to hold this sweet little soul. Who this time next year we will be kept safe as he starts to really explore the world and get into all the things that we all must get into when we start walking around. I know how fleeting this time is. Every time I see him he is bigger, our visits are infrequent enough that I can see the growth, but frequent enough that he recognizes me when I get to hold him, and snuggles right in.

So that’s it I confess! I am a baby snuggle steal-er! And I don’t plan on changing it anytime soon!

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.

We Must Feed Them

by | Oct 2, 2018 | Cooking, Parenting, Truth-Telling

Being a responsible parent always includes feeding my kids but WHY do they put up such a fight?

Children must be fed. It’s part of the job description of being a parent. You must feed and water your kids and make sure they sleep and take them to the doctor and dentist every now and then, and make sure they wear shoes at least in the colder months and these are all part of not being neglectful of your children.

But where is the fucking guidebook? Where is the recipe plan to feed your children? No wonder the food industry has been able to get so many fucking chemicals, high fructose corn syrup and other things down our kid’s throats. Anyone who has ever tried reasoning with a small person over food knows exactly what I am talking about.

I miss nursing. Not actually having someone attached to my nipple, I am so done with that, but the ease of having the perfect food for my child at the perfect temperature, right there ready for them when they were. It was bliss for them and it was so much easier than arguing with a preteen that needs to eat and is just well not eating.

I want my kids to eat good food. We are building a homestead so we can grow better food for them than we can afford to buy in the quantity a family of six needs. This is why we have ducks that lay eggs, bacon seeds growing the brambles and meat birds ready to be harvested in about six weeks. I do this for them! If I didn’t have them I could probably afford to just buy local organic food as it is and not have to grow it all myself. Yes, we would grow some of it because my hubby actually enjoys gardening… me, I feel like it’s just one more thing I need to keep alive most of the time…

But it’s not that simple. For instance, my kids are on a breakfast strike again. It doesn’t matter what I offer them someone isn’t going to want to eat it. You know that I feel that breakfast should be a serve yourself leave me alone and let me drink my coffee and read a book kind of meal right? Like perfect weekend mornings with hubby is when we communally make some yummy food and then eat it on the back porch while drinking our coffee and not necessarily exchanging a word. That’s what breakfast should be.

Not a drama or a tirade, and I am not awake enough to deal with temper tantrums. Please just find something that doesn’t have a lot of sugar in it and eat it! Part of this is coming off of company breakfasts, where I actually bought a shit ton of cheap (and therefore nasty) bread and made toast every morning that they slathered in PB, or had granola with yogurt which is not something I usually stock because my kids could go through a quart of yogurt in a snack, let alone a meal! My budget doesn’t stretch to that. It just doesn’t. Not when most yogurt is devoid of any food like substance left and will give my kids a massive sugar high.

So this morning I thought I would nip the whole issue in the bud. I thought I would go ahead and cut up some of those first Maine apples that we were given from friends yesterday and mix in some duck eggs, and oatmeal and pumpkin spice seasoning because I couldn’t find the straight cinnamon and mix it all up and it would be yummy.

And it sure smelled yummy to me. But my kids rejected any bit that looked like it had touched an egg. Maybe I didn’t mix it well enough, maybe there was not enough water to the oatmeal but I expected those juicy apples to leach out their juices. Maybe I should have cooked it on the stove instead of the microwave because I wanted to get my coffee and breakfast made as well.

I don’t the fuck know.

All I know is that two out of four kids rejected it out of hand and the other two just pickily ate around the eggs. Thank goodness the pigs will eat it. But that’s it. I said I was done helping with breakfast at that point. They could have peanut butter on a spoon, another apple, make themselves a new batch of oatmeal but to please leave me the fuck alone.

Okay, I left the fuck part out of the sentence because I try not to traumatize my kids too early in the morning. And well I guess the smell of coffee had started having an effect.

But oh my goddess they had better come up with a good idea for breakfast tomorrow. Because I am so done with this. I am so tired of this. I think maybe I should make them breakfast the night before when I am fucking tired from getting dinner on the table.

That’s what the Pinterest moms do right? Or they get up super early to make a yummy breakfast for their kids? That’s what you find on Instagram right? Not me when I get up before my kids I am going for a walk with my audiobook, or sneaking up here to get some writing done. I am not making glorious breakfasts unless it is someone’s birthday, a holiday or we are having brunch guests and games. Just not fucking going to happen.

I guess this is how all the boxed cereal companies stay in business.

Pass the fucking milk.

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.

Shopping with Kids

by | Sep 25, 2018 | Parenting

I had forgotten…
forgotten how hard it can be…
to go shopping with kids.

My 4 year old had been acting better when we had been shopping lately. The “I wants” had not been coming out and she had been reasonably patient and helpful during the last few shopping trips.

So I had forgotten…

Forgotten how difficult it can be to go shopping…

With children.

On Tuesday I needed to go to the dollar store to buy some band-aids and other first aid supplies for our Daisy Girl Scout meeting that night. I took all four of my kids because it was the middle of the day and I had promised my 6-year-old that she could pick out the bandaids for her troop because they have some pretty ones at the dollar store.

I also brought everyone because I wanted to stock up on snacks for while we are moving, both to just be able to shove food at the kids and also so they had food to bring with them when they were hanging out at friends houses. Since I am unable to remember who likes what anymore (because I swear they keep changing their minds!) I brought everyone along.

My first warning sign should have been that she wasn’t initially willing to get in the cart. Also, it was super difficult for her to deal with the fact that her sister was going to be looking for a birthday present that we also needed to put together for a friend of ours.

It pretty much went downhill from there. There was a lot of kicking out of her feet which didn’t make me want to push her in the cart. There was a lot of demands about where she wanted to be pushed next, and lots of holding on of things that she also wanted to buy. And it was the dollar store, I was more than willing to buy her a set of bubble makers the shape of popsicles to share with her sisters at the new house.

Of course, it didn’t help that some of her sisters couldn’t really find snacks that they wanted, or took forever to decide. And even though they had eaten lunch, apparently they had gotten hungry again on the 20-minute car ride, or more accurately all the food marketing and packaging was making them hungry and whiny.

We finally checked out and made it out of the store. But we still needed to go to WalMart to buy the rest of our groceries.

Yes, I said it, WalMart, and don’t you go getting all judgy with me. I do my best to shop all local and USA made as I can, but when it comes down to basics of food, there are times where you really do need to stretch your dollar. Believe it or not, but there are also times that in my neighborhood Walmart has the nicer produce, and they sell organic just like the grocery stores do. Also in my neighborhood there currently are not any locally owned grocery stores, so does it matter if I am going to WalMart, Shaws or Hannaford? They are all big box stores.

Also by shopping where I can stretch my dollar, I am able to do more local shopping as well. Just saying that it can, in fact, work both ways!

Anyway by the time we get to Walmart and have a bathroom stop (in the back in the family bathroom because they have the mini toilets that just make my 4 year old so happy) we hit up the craft kit aisle (not in the toy department in the craft department, I am not that crazy) to pick out the final couple of pieces for the birthday gift we are putting together.

Unfortunately, my 4-year-old sees the Paint Your Own ceramic Elsa From Frozen piggy bank. And she wants one. And I can understand why it’s tall, it looks cool and it’s nice and breakable, what more could a 4-year-old want?

The only problem is that 1), I am not shopping for my daughter at the moment and it is way too far out to get her something for her birthday that she knows about and 2) my husband is the only one with the painting skills to make this bank look recognizably like Elsa and 3) we still need to get a craft kit for the person we came into this aisle for.

But we have deeply triggered the “I wants” which currently come out in the “Please, please, please” said over and over again to my consistent “No’s”. I guess I am lucky that she doesn’t try to bargain yet.

We finally make it out of the aisle with what we need and even while I am pushing the cart down to the grocery section she is still asking about it. Or buying her anything really at this point and I am still standing firm in my no. Reminding myself how I usually try and set my children up for success and not failure while shopping and wondering where I went wrong this time around.

We finally make it to check out and I prepare to pay and the register decides to stop working and completely deletes my transaction and the cashier is new and doesn’t seem to understand urgency when it comes to getting the manager to help.

Finally, we check out again with the manager and she is amazing and keeps my girls engaged while she uses the wand to rescan all our items except for the few that need to be weighed, and we finally make it out to the car.

Where my 4 year old no longer wants to get buckled in her carseat. And no amount of cajoling seems to work. And while I try to take a few minutes to help her identify her feelings, in the end, I just sit patiently in the driver’s seat until she finally gives up and gets hooked.

And vow to myself that I am not taking her shopping again for at least another month. Because this was just too hard and I am too tired and old to put up with this shit and frankly who needs to go shopping anyway?

I need to see if any of the CSA’s will still let me sign up and see how much Amazon can deliver to my door because I am done shopping with my kids for a while!

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.

Trials of Mompreneur Life

by | Sep 18, 2018 | Parenting

Real life of a Mompreneur, all I’m asking for is that my kids can do without me for three hours a day four days a week.

Yesterday I had a conference call with my Virtual Assistant, because not as much would get done around here for the Mommy Rebellion if I did not have a Virtual Assistant.

Luckily Lisa is also a mom, to a 7-year-old son, so she gets it. Her son goes to school so she is able to schedule our calls while he is busy. Me, however, I have kids with me 24/7 most days and my youngest (at not quite 5) has really been pushing the boundaries lately.

As you can see from the photo above, she was literally pushing buttons yesterday, or rather sticking her feet in my face during the end of our conference call.

One the one hand it was great that Lisa was able to snap a photo for me, because it will make for great marketing materials for the Mommy Rebellion (just about every mom can relate to that photo). But on the other hand gosh darn it why can’t she stay out of my room for 30 minutes?

I am going to have to start leaving the house to get my work done. I have tried locking the door and that has lead to her practically breaking it down. And while my husband is okay if she does break the door down and is okay with me keeping it locked, it does get very distracting both for me and the other people on the video call.

I swear it was easier when she was 2. She got to watch tv with her big sisters and I made sure she had a snack and she was all set to go while I was on a call. Nowadays forget it!

So the ultimate solution is for me to just leave. My eldest is old enough to babysit. She’s not going to like it and will get annoyed if it becomes a regular thing. But I am guessing I am only going to have to do it a time or two before my youngest gets the picture and stops being such a pain. Of course, moving to a new town and a more rural one at that I am actually not sure where I can go and have wifi access, which is usually what I need while working. I mean I can do a little, like writing this without wifi access, but I can not do things for my clients without it.

I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to have that big confrontation and just leave. But this interrupting, not letting me get my work done, and all over disrespect of my work time can’t stand either. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to my clients and it is not fair to her either, because she needs to learn limits.

Plus we are only talking about 3 hours a day. She can manage to not really need me much for 3 hours a day. She has three other sisters to interact with. Right now she has a grandmother and uncle (which is why I didn’t just leave this morning) to hang out with as well. I spend the rest of the day with her.

I drive her places. We play games, I make sure she has food, I read to her and her sisters. I really think that her needs are being met and that at almost 5 she can do without me for three hours a day four days a week. That’s all I’m asking for.

And I would get so much more done! Not having the constant interruptions would mean that I would get a lot more done at any given time than I do right now because I could just focus and get it done, rather than being torn away and then having to come back and remember where I am and refocus, etc.

You know what I mean right?

Plus while it was funny this time, I really don’t want to conduct meetings with feet in my face. It’s not like they are super cute and yummy newborn feet. These are sweaty, dirty, stinky big girl feet that do not need to be in my face. Ever. Especially not when I am conducting a meeting and trying to get work done.

I don’t want to have that in my vocabulary anymore. I don’t want to say I am trying to get work done. I want to say I am working. I am getting work done. Work is happening. I am pursuing my dreams and supporting my clients and growing Mommy Rebellion. I am writing. I am creating.

I am tired of being held hostage by the interrupting chickens. They created locks on the doors for reasons. I am going to get a treadmill desk in the next year. This is happening. I need to walk and do my work with minimal interruptions, especially during meetings.

She will survive. I will actually want to spend MORE time with her because she won’t have been interrupting me all morning and I will have actually gotten some work DONE instead of having it bleed into time I would normally be spending with her because she used up my work time.

Yep it could all be so much easier.

I better find out where those wifi spots are, eh?

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.

Fucking Pumpkin Spice

by | Sep 11, 2018 | Cooking, Truth-Telling

Pumpkin is kinda my thing but after two decades of pumpkin spice I could care less and don’t need it in fucking everything.

I happen to love pumpkin, I always have and I always will. My parents used to tease me and say I liked all things orange, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, oranges because it matched my red hair. I don’t know if that was true or not, I just know that those are some of my favorite foods.

There is even a story that at almost 11 months old for my first Thanksgiving I managed to eat a full portion of everything and even a full slice of pumpkin pie.

So it’s kinda my thing. One of my mom’s favorite recipes has always been a pumpkin quick bread because it makes two loaves so you can take one to a potluck and still have one to eat at home. Full of pumpkin, spices, walnuts, and raisins, what’s not to love?

My mom always canned pumpkin too, so we always had it around. I think we used to even make pumpkin cookies sometimes.

So in my twenties when the first pumpkin lattes came out I used to get them when we would visit Barnes and Noble and the Starbucks inside. I know lots of people are anti-Starbucks but this was the early 2000s, and back in those days they were one of the few coffee shops that had a dairy milk alternative and being married to someone allergic to dairy, it did determine where we shopped to buy coffee (and still does. Starbucks is one of the few places that has coconut milk as my hubby doesn’t like what happens to almond milk in coffee and let’s face it soymilk is not that good to drink if you’re male).

And it was pretty good in the beginning before it was everywhere. Like I said I happen to like pumpkin.

However almost two decades later, um, I could care less. We happened to be in a city recently and therefore stopped at Starbucks (we get our coffee from nice local shops whenever we can, but have yet to find them in Augusta) and I ordered a lightly sweetened (don’t add any sugar at all please) chai. I was really surprised at how pumpkin-y it tasted. Like really if you added some whip cream and nutmeg sprinkled on top it could have totally been a pumpkin spice latte.

Which wasn’t what I was going for. No, I wanted a chai, not the same thing. Chai has peppercorns and turmeric. Yes, it also has cloves, and ginger and cinnamon, but those peppercorns, and turmeric changes the taste quite a lot. Oh and cardamon, a good chai needs that as well and that definitely keeps it out of the pumpkin pie realm.

I still love pumpkin pie and make a couple for Thanksgiving (we often eat it for breakfast because who wants to cook breakfast with everything else on Thanksgiving??). I still eat pumpkin (it doesn’t need any sweetener in my mind). I even put it in my smoothies to change things up.

But I don’t need it in fucking everything.

I don’t need all the back to school, back to fall advertising to be only about pumpkin spice. Let’s face it there is so much more to fall than just pumpkin.

Thereare so many other lovely winter squashes to enjoy and appreciate. Change them up and get some other great vitamins.

Not that a pumpkin latte is actually providing you with anything of nutritional value. Not if you are buying it. If you are making it, possibly depending on the sugar and dairy you are using. But the stuff you buy at a store…. pumpkin flavor coffee and most beers do not have any pumpkin in them! I mean what’s the point. Why not just say cinnamon spicy coffee and beers? Why call it pumpkin when you aren’t even using it.

And don’t get me started on Jack-o-Lanterns. Just don’t.

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.

Why Won’t My Kids Just Go Away?

by | Aug 28, 2018 | Parenting, Truth-Telling

Sometimes I just want a little peace and quiet…

Some days I wish my kids would just go away. Don’t get me wrong I love them and can’t imagine life without them, but honestly some days I wish they would just go away.

I suppose if I sent them to school I might not feel that way, but then the pressure of work would take it’s place, because if your kids are all school age there is no reason for you to not be working outside the home right?

I don’t think it’s because I run a business and do occasionally need to think straight without my interrupting chickens, well interrupting. I remember wishing they would go away and I could get a break sometimes even when I was the one working outside the home, or was the stay at home parent without a business.

Some days they are just too much. They talk too much, demand too much, need to be corrected for abhorrent behavior too much. I can understand why so many of us lean on technology to babysit them because we just want a few minutes of peace.

For me it gets worse when I am tired or sick. My tolerance for the touching and the need to follow the long-winded imaginary story just goes out the window. And it’s difficult. It’ snot their fault that I feel this way, just as it’s really not mine. And my poor hubby gets to take over more of the cooking duties etc because by the time we reach the end of the day, I am done, and just want to curl up into a ball and be left alone, which doesn’t necessarily get his needs met either.

It is not a lot of fun. I do my best not to have too many of these days. Usually one or two a moon cycle I can plan for and just work around. But this week I think I have it a wall. I think it’s partially because we have had a crazy spring, with looking at houses, then buying one and all the ups and downs that brought, and then moving in and wanting to unpack for a party and now I just want to absorb what little summer seems to be left. I think maybe I burned the candle at both ends for a while and now my body is just demanding rest.

I was grateful that my eldest didn’t want to do the library program today because she feels like she is coming down with a cold and didn’t want to spread it to anyone else. Not only was that good forethought for an almost 12 year old but it gave me the excuse to get work done this morning so that I can then just sit and read this afternoon. And I have a good excuse for that. I have about 300 pages of a book to read between now and Thursday morning and it’s already a Tuesday.

Yesterday was a hard day even though I ended up getting a nap. I was hoping today would be better, but last night I had lots of disturbing dreams and got woken up several times by the black cat trying to convince the gray cat to play with her and the gray cat decided to have none of it and just hissed up a storm. Not exactly how I was planning on waking up this morning.

However I do have a late in the day beach date scheduled for tomorrow and the other mom doesn’t care if one of my kids might have a cold. My girls have been missing beach time so hopefully this will help and it should be a shady spot so that should help as well. I am thinking about not sharing it until tomorrow so I don’t get the infinite when do we get to leave questions.

I am just so tired. I just want to curl up on our new to us couch or easy chair and be left alone for a day. I think that would help me feel so much better. Maybe not. But it is all I am itching for. This week is less busy which is good but it also means everything can just catch up with me. And that doesn’t get the laundry or the dishes done.

And it’s not like the girls do it much without me constantly reminding them to do it. Which takes energy in and of itself. But I feel like if I don’t and I just do it all myself they are not learning valuable lessons and I am just going to get really resentful.

That’s my idea anyway. And I’m sticking to it.

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.

The Most Important Thing To Teach Our Kids

by | Aug 23, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care

Robyn Wiley talks about what she believes is the most important thing we can teach our kids, to love ourselves! Watch her video to learn more and hear her tips for filling our own needs and how to model it for our kids.

Robyn Wiley is Mama Bear to a beautiful and hilarious 10 year old boy. When she’s not playing outside or watching the latest Pixar film, she can be found Coaching, leading Reiki and personal growth workshops, writing, and having deep conversations with interesting people.

Robyn’s mission in life is to be an amazing parent, live freely and fully from her heart, and help others to do the same!

Among her training and experience, Robyn has completed a B.A. in Philosophy, Reiki Trainings from 2009-2017 to the highest level of Reiki Master of Masters, and Certifications in “Assertiveness Coaching” and Strategic Intervention Coaching,” the latter through the highly reputed Robbins-Madanes Core 100 Program.

From 2014-present she has coached 60+ clients, has designed/led 70+ Personal/Spiritual Development workshops, and has published a Guided Journal called: “My Happy Book: a Guided Journal to Light up your Life.”

Robyn continuously seeks training and experience to support her in being the best person, parent, coach, and teacher she can be!

To learn more about Robyn and her work, please visit her website at:
www.robyntwiley.com or visit her FB and IG pages: @robyntwiley