Shortly after my third child was born, I began to realize that I was… frazzled.
Of course, this is to be expected. I have given birth to three children in four years and fostered two more children in that same time frame. I’m a stay-at-home Mom, and while I realize that this is an incredible privilege, it can also feel… mundane. I have found that most of my time at home is simply spent meeting the many needs of my children.
Of course, being the millennial that I am, I started to look for a solution.
Facebook told me all about how I could cope by turning to wine or chocolate. Instagram told me all about how badly I needed the perfect date night routine with my husband. After all, my marriage is far more important than my children and once I got that under control, my kids would just fall into place (this doesn’t happen, btw).
All the blogs I read told me that I desperately needed a better self-care routine. After all, if I could just implement a workout routine, followed by a bubble bath, followed by reading a good book and taking some time to myself, all would be right in the world.
Somehow, despite trying all of these things… they just didn’t work. My kids would still be crazy the morning after date night, the self-care would almost always get interrupted and leave me even more stressed out and frustrated than before.
I was still frazzled and I didn’t know what to do about it.
One day, I was sitting in my home in the still of the evening. The two big kids were already asleep in their bed, and my baby was doing some tummy time on the floor beside me. I opened up Instagram stories and began watching through on a loop. As I was watching one of my favorite influencers, she started to share a video of her son doing tummy time. Now, her son and my son happen to be only a few days apart, and as I stared at the screen, I chuckled and smiled at her baby. Suddenly, it hit me.
I WAS WATCHING HER SON DO WHAT MY OWN SON WAS DOING RIGHT NEXT TO ME.
I immediately put my phone down and watched my own child do tummy time. And then I realized something even more profound.
This “problem” that I have with being frazzled by my kids? I don’t need a solution to that problem. The problem is that I need a mental reset so that I will stop seeing my children as a problem. So this year I have set out to see my children as my greatest joy-bringers.
It hasn’t been easy. In fact, it is challenging! Because the behavior of my children hasn’t changed. They still wake up way too early and argue and need me to wipe their butts at the most inopportune time. But I’m working on having a mental shift that sees them not as inconveniences to my day, but as the greatest gift of abundance I could ever ask for.
I know that this seems all nice and everything, but I have been focusing on just adding one simple habit to my life each month. When I say simple, I truly mean SIMPLE.
For example, the first habit that I have been working to build is to smile at my children and give them a hug when I first greet them in the morning. Yes, sometimes I am annoyed that they are up before 6:30 am, but when I greet them in the morning by smiling at them, I am telling them that I am so glad they are in my day. And this changes the entire course of the rest of the day!
Don’t believe me? Try it.
I challenge you to greet your child with a smile and a hug every morning for the next 30 days. Let’s enjoy our children, and see them as they joy-bringers they are.
