No-Good-Very-Bad-Days

by | Jul 17, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care, Tips and Techniques, Truth-Telling

This week’s blog post is about how you choose to handle the no-good-very-bad-days that are bound to happen.

Some days you wake up and you might as well go back to bed. You just know it is going to be one of those Alexander-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-days kind of day. But you’re a grown up. You probably have a list of things that you need to do today, maybe an important meeting, maybe just a house that looks like a tornado walked through it, maybe you are providing childcare for someone else’s kid.

The no-good-very-bad-days don’t show up when you have space in your schedule. They don’t show up when you feel like everything in your world is going great. They don’t show up when you have nowhere you need to be, or no one you are responsible for.

No-good-very-bad-days show up when you are super busy. When you are so busy or there is so much that needs to be done, or you have had some very big changes in your life, that to add the shit frosting on top of the shit cake, here’s it is. A day that you just know isn’t going to be a good day.

Maybe you feel like you are starting to get sick. Maybe you are sick. Maybe your kids wake you up with them being sick. All over you. Or they are running fevers and put their hot bodies up against yours.

You’ve got two choices. You can get up and get this no-good-very-bad-day started, or you can try and get some extra sleep. Hit the snooze alarm a few times or just ignore it all together. I have done both, so absolutely no judgment here, regardless of your choice.

And throughout your no-good-very-bad-day you have choices. You can pretend that you have an assistant (or maybe you are lucky enough to actually have one) and cancel everything that is not super critical for you to do today.

You can call in sick. Play hokey. Decide to binge watch TV with your kids. (Secret from a summer of chicken pox, let each child pick one show and rotate and include yourself in the rotation so you can watch something that you have picked every now and then too.) At the very least you can prioritize what absolutely has to happen today and punt everything else.

Oh and give up on the meals. Pass them off to someone else, get someone else to cook, or decide that it’s going to be takeout tonight. Or cereal and milk or popcorn. Or if you absolutely can’t get out of cooking supper than make it breakfast. It’s usually super easy-going.

You can also decide to stack your day and try and get through those most important things first. Get that load of laundry started, get dinner in the crockpot, not stay in bed because your children are still asleep and get your work done early, or at least started on.

Try to laugh. On a no-good-very-bad-day, you might not want to wear your best clothes because you will be spilling stuff on it. Make sure your helmet is on and you’ve buckled your seat belt. Take some extra moments to breathe. Pass off as much as you can to someone else.

See if you can have a mommy play-date so someone else is helping watch your kids and you can compare your no-good-very-bad-day with another mom. Not in the competition sense, but in the we all have these happen from time to time sense. I have a friend who hangs out at the children section of her local library when as she puts it “needs adult supervision”. It can be helpful to just put your kids in a new safe environment which has extra adults who may be helping to keep an eye out on them.

It can also be helpful to just cancel everything and stay in bed. It’s not something we can always do, but it can help.

I often try and get the priorities done first so that I can later take a nap, an extended siesta or just curl up on the couch and read to my girls for a while on no-good-very-bad-days.

Oh and take your vitamins! They can’t hurt and will probably help. Go slow on the caffeine as getting super buzzed is not going to help and may contribute to the no-good-very-bad-day. And drink water. My go to solution for everything that ails you, go have a glass of water and then tell me how you feel. Of course, you may end up wearing it.

That’s okay. It’s only water. So it will be wet, and either cold or hot, but it shouldn’t destroy too much. I wouldn’t have any alcohol until you have reached the finish line of the day, see the above caffeine advice.

And maybe sit down and actually read about Alexander’s day, and see who had it worse. Your kids will probably enjoy listening to the classic. Hopefully, you didn’t have a dentist appointment, and maybe you really could move to Australia.

Of course my experience with Australian airports, I am not convinced you would actually have a better day there, but you never know. It might be better in Australia.

And tomorrow most certainly should be better, especially if you can go to bed early tonight. Because no-good-very-bad-days are exhausting.

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 are we taking responsibility for our kids emotions?

by | Apr 24, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care, Truth-Telling

I recently heard the saying that “Parents are only as happy as their least unhappy child”.  But why should we be beholden to how our children feel?  They are their own beings, with their own lessons to learn, right?

 

But really we need to stop taking responsibility for our kids emotions.

Seriously. They are themselves. Their own beings that come into this world as their own selves.

We can’t be responsible for how they feel.

In the beginning the only way they can communicate with us is to cry, smile, and make little noises, they don’t have the luxury of controlling their emotions at all, because that cry, gets our attention so that we help them figure out what is going on. That smile rewards us for doing something right, for helping them feel contented and full of love.

I know this, I have held four babies in my arms and at times they have had to cry to get my attention. Not because I was in any way a neglectful parent, but because I have other children, a husband and a very busy internal imagination and maybe I just happened to be thinking of other things. Maybe just maybe.

So how come at some point we feel like we have to take responsibility and be in charge of how our kids feel and therefore how the react? Is it the first time we can’t get our baby to stop crying and we are either in public or are afraid that someone can hear us and therefore we will be judged?

Or we are judging ourselves because we don’t actually like the sound of our baby crying and we feel ill equipped to deal with it (of course we are biologically wired to feel uncomfortable when our baby cries that is how it is suppose to work). Or we are just so tired because it feels like this has been for days (and it may very well be) and you are at your wits end.

Somewhere in all of that we get to the point where we will do anything to just get our child to be happy again so (mostly likely) we can get some more sleep, eat or take a shower or go to the bathroom by yourself.

And then it snowballs. Your kid gets older and decides that the seat in the grocery store is electrified and they lose their shit. But you can’t just walk out of the store because you actually need those groceries to be able to eat tonight.

Or your kids get’s really angry at the other kid on the playground and hauls off and hits them and now they are banned from daycare.

Or your family is going through a really stressful shitty time and you don’t know how to deal with your emotions much less deal with theirs. And what they are feeling are totally valid and acceptable feelings, they maybe aren’t demonstrating them well, or they are lashing out at their safest person which happens to be you, much like you took your shit out on your partner or best friend last week.

Yet knowing this you still give the stink eye to another parent who’s kid is losing their shit. Maybe it’s on an airplane, maybe they are throwing a fit in the checkout line, or maybe just not great behavior at the umpteenth birthday party you have had to attend this weekend (hint you can say no, you don’t have to go to all of them).

We do though, we judge each other on how our kids are behaving, even though we are not in complete control of them, and we most certainly are not in control of their feelings. Hell half the time we are not in control of our own.

But does any of this judging actually help our kids or change the situation? Sometimes your kid just needs to cry, because yes as far as they are concerned not getting the green Popsicle instead of the red one is the end of the world and something they need to grieve over. Because they had wrapped a whole story up in their mind about how much cooler the green Popsicle would make them look.

We don’t know. Frankly I don’t want to be in my kid’s minds, mine is hard enough to control and listen to constantly as it is (hence why we invented meditation, alcohol and binge worthy TV). I don’t live in their bodies, or understand how their brain rewired itself last night (and new research shows it probably did).

Why do I have to be responsible for their emotions?

I am responsible to my kids to be the best mum I can be. I am not responsible for their behavior. I responsible to keep them as safe as I can, but at some point they may still make stupid decisions and it’s my job to be there to help them pick up the pieces and fix it.

I will not take my kids feelings away from them. I will try and help them find ways of processing how they feel without harming others or destroying friendships they don’t want to destroy. But it is not my fault that my child is having a bad time, feels miserable and conversely are having an awesome day.

All I can control is my reactions to them. And creating safe environments for them to learn what the world wants to teach them. Their lessons are not my lessons to learn necessarily. My lessons is how to help support them to get through theirs.

Because that’s my job as their mum.

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.

She’s Touching Me!

by | Apr 3, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care, Truth-Telling

It’s not just your kids touching each other that can get annoying…

 

She is sitting next to me.

At least at this moment she is not insisting on lifting up my shirt and touching my “mole-ys” that have become her points of comfort since being weaned.

But she is still sitting next to me

while I try to work and get things done.

She is playing on her kindle and talking. And expecting me to be able to keep up with both her game and her chatter, and I am busy actually writing and working and doing my best not to pay attention to her at all, so I can get my work done.

But she is only 4 ½ half.

And she has been sick lately. We all have with a 48 hour fever and then the rest of the cold symptoms that last for a few days before and afterward. When you are a family of six, in my experience, illness doesn’t as rapidly through everyone. Which is nice because you do not have six people down at once, but it can also seem never ending because once two or three of us have gotten sick it’s hard to remember that we haven’t all gotten it yet.

At least it is better than the summer they had chicken pox

Which was annoying in that it was the summer

And we were stuck inside for weeks.

But it was good because they all got it at once (okay really one got it and then about 10 days later the other three got it in the space of 72 hours) and it’s one of those things I wanted them to get and then let us move on.

Politics of vaccinations aside, this is what most of us went through as kids and honestly they haven’t gotten super sick since we did that almost two summers ago.

But she is still sitting there giggling

and playing

And needing to be close to me.

Just as much as I need to work on my laptop in my pajamas in bed today

Because I am too tired and sick to want to get dressed yet.

I will because I have places to be and things I have to do later in the day-to-day.

But one advantage to working from home is I don’t have to get dressed at a certain time most days.

My clients can’t see me

Since most of them work from home as well, for all I know they are in their pajamas too.

I do get dressed most of the time, it takes being really sick for me not to get dressed.

And I plan on getting dressed after I finish up my work for today. I’ll go take a shower (because that should allow me to hide from the girls for a while and I need that more than the getting clean part) and then get dressed and then go downstairs and read our chapter book aloud. I was suppose to do it at breakfast, but one of my girls who is of course still sick hadn’t gotten up yet, so we had to save it for later.

I am hoping to finish this read aloud book with them soon. It’s a good story, and the book is under 300 pages, but for whatever reason it is taking a long time to get it read to them. I suspect it is because they love Harry Potter more and if given the choice and we can only read one they want Potter. And it’s the Order of the Phoenix so it may never get finished. 400+ pages in and we would have already finished the first two or three books and we aren’t even halfway done with Phoenix. Oh well the things we do for the love of our kids.

Like letting them sit next to us when they are sick, even though the giggles and chatter are slightly annoying. Mainly because I am not firing on all cylinders myself. But also because it’s just so hard to follow sometimes. The mind of a 4 year old is so far removed from that of a 38 year old that sometimes it is hard to follow what she is saying.

But hopefully she will have some vague memories of sitting next to me.

Or of the love

Or of holding moly -ies.

Or just remember to do it for her kids.

That makes it worthwhile right?

That and knowing that I can hide in the shower in a few minutes.

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.

Waking Up Sick

by | Mar 27, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care, Truth-Telling

We are still recovering from getting hit with a fever/cold thing late last week.  It’s a little better here than when I wrote this, but not much.

 

Waking up sick. When the whole house wakes up sick, it really does feel like everyone should just go back to bed.

Almost like if we were on an airplane and someone else came and brought everyone warm drinks from time to time. And crackers, crackers are usually good when you are sick.

And I am thinking an international plane so everyone has their own TV screen to listen to music or play games or watch TV from a curated selection of movies and TV shows so the kids can’t just watch anything, but if they want to watch Frozen over and over again they can. And I can be in my own bed watching what I want watch and getting hot drinks delivered regularly.

And someone else is in charge of cooking the meals, doing the laundry and cleaning the bathroom.

Yep, that would be perfect.

Of course none of that happens. If everyone in the house is sick than you know there is a case of the man-flu going on. My hubby is often good at tag teaming if he is not really sick, but if he’s really sick, forget it, he is down for the count.

I don’t know what is worse, fevers and aching bodies.

Or the stomach flu with vomiting and diarrhea

I always think whichever is not going on is the worst.

But then I change my mind the next time we get something.

I think head colds are hard because you are not 100% all there, but you totally feel like you should be, and you make yourself go to work, and take your kids all the places and everything but really all you want to do is curl up on the couch and veg or in my case it’s usually take a nap.

Naps are wonderful. If I can’t sleep they are a great excuse to get caught up on my reading. Which I never get caught up on because I love to read, but anyway. I could go on and on about the type of book you need to read when you are sick because they are able to actually take you out of your misery, but I won’t digress that far.

None of my kids are at the point where they will read when they are sick. So that just leaves other forms of entertainment. Thank the Gods that audiobooks were invented and live in lovely clouds named Audible. That means they can listen to the Penderwicks, Land of Stories, All Of A Kind Family ad infinitum and I don’t have to read it out to them. I just need to be in another room or they need headphones.

Seriously.

Today they all want to take baths, but my eldest at 11 does not want to take a bath with anyone else. I totally understand, I feel that way too, and try to be graceful when they all have to pile in anyway. But when I am sick.

Forget about it.

No extra touching please.

Actually how about no touching at all?

Because I know where you hands have been and I really don’t need anyone else’s snot to deal with. Mine is annoying enough. Trust me.

I am just so glad I am past the point of a snotty baby who needs to nurse. Because there is something about snot on my breasts that grosses me out on a level that no amount of vomit and poop has to this point.

I say that while knocking on wood, because you know, I am not about to tempt Fate and her mistresses.

But seriously I am not a human size handkerchief or napkin. You can keep your snot to yourself.

I have plenty of my own over here.

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.

How To Incorporate Your Kids In Your Self-Care

by | Feb 27, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care

Can you include your kids in some of your selfcare needs?  What if it also gives you Mom Brownie Points?

 

So how do you get your kids involved in your own self-care needs? Because let’s face it, if you can get them involved than at least their interruptions are a bit more controlled. Also it counts as quality family time, right?

Over the years I have tried a bunch of different things, some of which we still do and some of which we only pull out occasionally. Family life changes and so do my needs for an oxygen mask and the needs of what my kids will put up with.

  • Foot baths with the girls. It’s pretty simple to set up, especially if it’s warm enough to do outside. I usually pull out all the big mixing bowls, roasting pans, etc. Fill them with nice warm water, maybe some nice essential oils like lavender, maybe some rose petals. Some good river rocks to rub your feet on are nice as well, whatever works best. My girls have always thought this was great fun, just don’t forget the towels to dry your feet off with afterward.
  • Hiking. Or going for a walk. Yes it can be a pain in the ass to get them all sorted and together, but once we get going, I almost always feel better, and they usually do to. They can most often be as loud as they want, as boisterous as they want and get all those wiggles and need to run out. This can be done in almost any weather, as long as you are willing to deal with the mess when you get home. Bathes, hot drinks are all once you get home possibilities as well as packing water and/or snacks for the journey. I usually just take water if it’s a neighborhood walk – if it’s a hike then snacks are included for the summit or halfway point.
  • Taking a bath. You can give them a bath first and then take one yourself, or let them all pile in with you. This works for showers as well. Depends on your current level of standing being touched, but it can be just the way to connect as well. In the summer going to a local body of water can serve the same function.
  • Reading a book. Yes sometimes it would be nice to read something for yourself, but often I can find a children book I can stand to read and can read to them for a while.  And there are some amazing chapter books out there that are better written than some adult novels.
  • Watching a movie. Family movie night, afternoon, or all day because you just need it are also possibilities. We also have been known to watch a lot of how to stuff on YouTube or Craftsy as a group as well and at least that feels educational. Speaking of which nature/science and technology documentaries should not be overlooked as well as cooking shows. Thanks to Netflix, and Amazon Prime this can all be done without ads so it doesn’t increase the I Wants. And then of course there are lots of good classic British Whodunnits which usually works no matter the age of your children. When we were cooped up in the middle of the summer dealing with Chicken Pox, everyone got to pick one show to watch and mom got to pick every second or third show so I wouldn’t go mad, for the 72 hours I was physically holding my children.
  • Naps. Take them together or let them watch TV while you take one yourself. Set an alarm and tell them they can’t come and bug you before the alarm or timer goes off. We often do lie downs when live get’s overwhelming, you can read, color or listen to an audiobook in your bed with your head on the pillow. Heads on the pillow being required and little to no talking. It gives everyone a break, even if you don’t lie down yourself.
  • Nail polish. We have amassed a small collection of Piggy Paint nail polish which is pretty much non-toxic and best of all doesn’t smell. While it won’t lead to perfect painting, letting my kids paint my toes and/or finger nails is something they find grand and I can just sit and be for a few minutes. They also often get together and do each other as well. I find pieces of cardboard for them to put hands and feet on keeps the mess to a minimum.  This could also work for face masks, etc.
  • Going to the park. I am not a hover mom or one that necessarily get’s involved at the park much. Beyond pushing you on the swing it’s really up to you to go and have fun. I need to stretch, read my book or listen to an audio book while we are out here in nature absorbing the sun.
  • Going for a car ride. This can be a nightmare or it can be relaxing, but no matter how loud your kids are if they are still in booster/car seats at least you know they are safe. Put on a family friendly audio book or some great music and off you go. Usually they come back calmer at the end of it. WE find peppermints and gum essential to ward off car sickness, but really this can be a go to family activity when you’ve had enough of your house.

I hope you find some of these things helpful. I would love to hear how you get some of your self care in while including your kids. This isn’t the only way I get self care in and if it was I am not sure it would always work, but these are great ways to get some extra in!

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.

Self-Care for Grown Ups

by | Feb 20, 2018 | Parenting, Self-Care

Self-Care for Grown Ups, sometimes it’s just getting five minutes of piece, and sometimes it’s about finishing that project without getting interrupted!

 

There is a lot of stuff in the news and popular media these days about self care. There was even a trending article just before the holidays that argued that self care is not about chocolate and luxury and is instead about actually making a budget for your household, etc.

I would like to argue that self care can be all these things and that for grown ups it often depends on the day.

For me self care can sometimes be as simple as getting away from my kids. Right now I swear my 4-year-old is clingier to me than she was as a baby, and just having a few minutes when she is not touching or whining at me would be absolutely wonderful!

The occasional breaks I get to go get my hair cut, to go grocery shopping alone, to go on a business retreat or extra training at Girl Scouts can be a lifeline for me.

But equally important is time with friends. Even if my kids are still there and are their normal interrupting chickens, having time with friends is better than staying a hermit in my house. Truly.

Hiding in a hot bath and reading a book is one of my go to things when I need some extra TLC or am just feeling under the weather. Most of the time I can sneak it in without any of my girls joining me, occasionally though it ends up being a family affair.

When it is not bitterly cold outside, drinking a hot drink with my hubby out on our back deck is lovely, the kids tend to either play in the yard or find that it is slightly too cold for them and go inside. It’s great because we get some much needed Vitamin D and a gentle start to the day.

But sometimes self care is getting that uninterrupted time to actually do something, be it have a conversation with your hubby, do your taxes and set a budget, pay the bills, or actually de-clutter the top of my dresser without having to explain what each item is. Just doing these things are super important.

Stealing a few minutes to finish the chapter of my book, or getting in an extra two rows of knitting done. Or actually getting to finish my food without someone else insisting on taking some bites or finishing it for me.

These are important things. Dragging my kids on a walk or a hike even though they may talk the whole way does seem to really help our relationships and at least gets us all outside.

Making yummy treats just because the day ends in Y is also a fun thing to do, like spontaneously ending the night at a friends house.

We schedule regular game nights or afternoons with friends, partially so we can have a chance to play games with people over the age of 15, or at the very least spread the teaching good sportsmanship around. But also because we have found it’s a great way to connect with other families and other adults while still including the kids.

Sometimes it is moving furniture around to make for a better flow in the house, so that things can work better, or just to change things up so that things flow in a different way.

Sometimes it is getting to garden without extra help.

Sometimes it is their insistence that you have to stop what you are doing Right. Now.

And play with them or read them a book.

Sometimes it is not telling them their best friend is coming over until just before they arrive so they don’t ask you all day how much longer it is until their friend comes, when they just asked two minutes ago.

Sometimes it is just taking a deep breathe and knowing that this too will pass, that this stage will change and that helping small people learn to take care of themselves and get their own self care is one of the most demanding jobs we can ever attempt to do.

And there is beauty in the attempt and not the perfection. There is beauty in the fact that we all mess up and it will never be perfect, because life isn’t perfect and there is so much for your children to learn from the imperfection of our life and the impermanence of it all.

Like self care moments that you hope will last at least five minutes and instead get shattered in two. And so you try again as soon as they are distracted again.

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.