No wonder Moms need downtime!
As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted here in over a year. Sure, I’ve shared some tips on vacation rentals with Budget Travel and musings on motherhood with the Huffington Post but this ittle blog has been woefully neglected for the past year plus. Why?
Well, if you look at my last post, which was all about surviving the spring sports season, it’s no wonder I haven’t had time to write! I even started wishing for rain, just so that instead of the mad dash out the door on a Saturday morning, we could enjoy a little family time. Down time. But the reality is this: if I thought last spring was bad, this one nearly broke me. For real.
In addition to balancing (or is it juggling? or perhaps flailing?!) a full time job and a house full of kids, four of those five kids had their tonsils out this spring. And I decided to chair our church’s Spring Fundraiser. And we got a new babysitter. And a new puppy! And, and, AND! Until one recent day I woke up with an eye twitch and a frozen shoulder. For real.
I was hoping the eye twitch wasn’t noticeable; it was. My boss told me so. So did my husband. And my sister. Apparently the cause was stress and fatigue. It was for real.
The so-called “frozen shoulder” was intensely painful, causing over a week of sleepless nights (and I thought they were behind us!) and limiting my ability to do everything from unload the dishwasher to load up on caffeine; I could barely lift a glass to my mouth. Wine glass included!
Clearly there was a problem – and I think the root of it was stress (duh!) and the need for downtime – or at least the permission to give myself a break. Last year, I gave myself a break from this blog. I thought that might help. It didn’t. I enjoy writing and hope/aspire/plan to do more of it. For real.
I’ve realized that “a break” can come in many forms – for me, it might be napping on the train, opting out of an early morning run or skipping a party, no excuse required. Sometimes, you need to just take time for you… a topic that I’ve ironically written about before!
In the end, I suspect we’re all pretty much alike — busy moms trying to do our best each and every day – at home, at work and everywhere in between. That’s why I’m going to try harder to give myself a break this summer – because the better rested, less stressed, more present I am, the better it is for those kiddos we do it all for. Not to mention, that eye twitch looked really weird and the shoulder issue was a royal bummer! This summer, I hope to squeeze in as much downtime as possible. And I hope that you do too. For real!
Have a tip? Please share it!
