Empathic Mastery With Jennifer Moore

by | Nov 29, 2018 | Affirmations, Grounding, Parenting, Teenagers, Tips and Techniques, Truth-Telling

Jenn Moore of Modern Medicine Lady joins us today for a special video to help a dear friend overcome the pain and emotions around getting braces.

While not technically a mom herself, Jen has been a fairy godmother to many, including many members of the Mommy Rebellion.

As an Intuitive Mentor, EFT Trainer, and author of upcoming book Empathic Mastery, Jennifer Moore works with highly sensitive and empathic moms (and their kids) who get flooded with the thoughts, feelings, and energy of the world around them. Jen teaches them to manage their sensitivities and filter the emotional noise they absorb. Often told they’re overreacting or to “suck it up”, Jen supports women to recognize what’s actually theirs and what they can return to sender.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed and stuck, Jen helps women to feel safe, calm and confident so they can use their abilities to make a difference about what matters to them.

FMI visit http://modernmedicinelady.com

Halloween Costumes Might Just Kill Me

by | Oct 30, 2018 | Parenting, Truth-Telling

Halloween costumes. They just might do me in. I think I should just hide and declare Halloween over. Here’s a bunch of candy, go get the child’s version of a hangover and I’ll see you tomorrow morning.

It is that time of year again. Immediately upon taking down all the back to school shit (and sometimes even before that) they put up all the Halloween costumes. I think it is supposed to coincide with pumpkin lattes being released originally but now it just seems to be whenever the company that owns the store decides to rotate stock.

Then it becomes even more impossible to shop with your kids. It’s a bit like a prequel to Christmas where you kids always want to go down the Christmas aisles to see all the ornaments and you feel like the mothers in A Miracle on 34th Street, where they really do not want to stand in line to see Santa Claus or buy any more presents.

Halloween costumes are like the prequel to that. To get you ready for all the commercialism of Christmas. And it seems to start with the candy. And early. I was in Sam’s Club in August and they had big jugs of Halloween Pretzels to pass out to trick-or-treaters. With pretzels shaped as Jack-o-Lanterns and Bats. I had to buy them of course on the off chance that we actually get some trick-or-treaters in the new house, and on the even better chance that my kids will eat them as snacks when we need to take car trips.

But beyond the candy, and how that either all gets eaten in one night or sticks around for the rest of the year, and seeing sugar everywhere, there are the costumes.

Oh my gawd the costumes. Thank goodness my kids don’t go to school and really do not have a lot of opportunity to share notes with other kids. Because here’s the thing. I am one crafty mama. I could totally Pinterest up the stuff I make, but frankly, my house is never that clean and the lighting is usually dark because it is after the kids go to bed. So it just doesn’t happen.

But here is the problem with being a crafty mama. I have four kids. That could mean four unique handmade costumes every fucking year that they are only going to wear for a couple of hours at most right? Because yes my girls do love to play dress up, but no they would much rather put on bigger people’s clothes than wear actually costumes that anyone took any time to make. Seriously.

So I have the skills. But I do not have the interest or the time. And since my kiddos got some theater grade costume hand me downs years ago, I decided I am not doing costumes. You have plenty of costumes already taking up floor space around the house, you are creative, you can figure this out. I am willing to be a sounding board and help you think about how you can do things, but I am not, no way going to help you. You’ve got that yourself.

This has worked for years. My eldest is 12 after all. Beyond occasionally dressing up myself (and only if I absolutely have to) I have been uninvolved in costuming. And it’s been great.

But then my youngest announced about six months before Halloween that she wanted to dress up as Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter. And she is perfect for it with the long blond hair that can be swept back, and she has the personality of a Slytherin to a tee. But we do not have any cloaks and Harry Potter type costume stuff because my kids have never shown an interest before.

So I talked to her about making a Slytherin scarf to go with her costume. I even found a free pattern on the web and my mother offered to start it while she was visiting this summer. And she probably got about 18 inches of the scarf done. But here’s the thing. I hate knitting scarves. And I have other handwork projects
going on right now. And that same child had her first birthday party this year as she turned 5 and the guest list was small enough that I made all the kids either unicorn headbands or bear headbands depending on the gender. So there is no way in hell that scarf is getting down by Halloween (well actually before because it’s a Wednesday this year so Halloween takes place the Saturday before in most cases), especially when I discovered that Target had a better one complete with fringe and the actual Slytherin coat of arms for $7. So I ordered that instead to go with the Slytherin shirt we bought her months ago for her birthday.

And of course being 5 after months of saying she was going to be Draco Malfoy for Halloween the closer we get to it the less she seems to want to be willing to dress up as Draco. It is enough to drive a parent insane.

Meanwhile my 10 year old didn’t get a cool headband for the birthday party because I was doing the birthday girl and guest first. So she needs me to finish up gray cat ears for her before I leave in 36 hours to be gone for 72 hours because she might be going to a Halloween party while I am gone. I have already made fox ears for the 6 year old. Thank goodness the 12 year old seems unimpressed. I am unimpressed. How did I manage to get roped into helping with costumes this year?

How can I make it stop?

Because they just might kill me. Halloween costumes. They just might do me in. Hearing about all my crafty and non crafty friends making them for their kids. And not wanting to spend my money on buying them the cheap nasty costumes in the store (because you know how I feel about shopping with my kids period). I think I should just hide and declare Halloween over. Here’s a bunch of candy, go get the child’s version of a hangover and I’ll see you tomorrow morning.

Yep, that sounds like a great idea!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.