Preschool & Momma's Guilt

My baby boy became a preschooler today. Where does the time go? I'm not ready for him to be a big boy yet.

Because Cavin hadn't ever really been in any type of formal daycare or preschool setting before, and because preschool classes can get way too expensive, we decided to ease into things with a class through our city parks and recreation that goes for an hour an a half, twice a week, for seven weeks.

They're going to be going over letters, numbers, colors, shapes, and all kinds of other fun stuff. I've been looking forward to this class for weeks, because I think that it will be really good for him to start getting used to a classroom setting before he's old enough to start kindergarten next year.

But as I drove him to his class this morning I wasn't feeling excited, I was feeling guilty. And when I tell you the source of that guilt, you might just laugh at me!

You see, the one thing I'd wanted to accomplish over the weekend, the one thing I wanted to make absolutely sure that we did, was to give the kids a bath. Momma confession: My kids get baths about once a week. And sometimes it ends up being a little longer than that.

I feel a little guilty about the frequency of their baths anyway, cause these boys can get pretty dirty in that short time frame. But baths are an exhaustive process in this house, because 99% of the time, Connor hates taking baths, and it takes some convincing, or a lot of convincing, to get him to cooperate. So because of this, I try to get away with doing them as seldom as possible.

But by this weekend, Cavin really needed a bath. And even though I kept reminding myself that it needed to happen, time got away from us, and it just didn't happen. So on our way to preschool this morning, I was feeling guilty that my poor kid was dirty, and hoping he didn't smell.

Momma guilt can be a tough one to deal with. We all wonder if we're doing the right things, if we're doing everything wrong, do we do this too much, do we not do this enough, etc, etc. And then when we drop the ball on something, we assume we're probably the worst mother in the world.

But you know what I was thinking about once we got to his classroom? How big my baby has grown up, how proud I was of him as he walked over to the other kids and started playing, and how hard it was for me to walk out of that room without crying.

I didn't care that he hadn't had a bath. In fact, I'd completely forgotten.
What I did care about was that this was a big moment in the life of my little boy.

We all make mistakes. It's just a fact of life. But will you let the guilt of your mistakes keep you from enjoying the life that is right in front of you? We need to learn to give ourselves a little grace once in a while, so that we can focus on the things that really matter.

Mom or not, married or single, flaws and all, you are perfect exactly the way you are, and even though sometimes you might think you're doing everything wrong, I promise you, you're doing just fine. 

Should I give my kids baths more often? Probably, yeah. Is it the end of the world if I forget to once in a while? No!

I don't know what guilt may be weighing you down today, but I want to challenge you to give yourself enough grace to let go of that guilt, to accept that you're human and that you will make mistakes and that that's okay. We pick ourselves up, and we keep moving forward.

Have an awesome day :-)

Rise & Shine Challenge - Day 2

Good morning friends! 

Today is day 2 of the Rise & Shine Challenge from The Abundant Mama. Yesterday's challenge was to think about how you want your mornings to flow, feel, and sound. Once we're aware of how we want our mornings to flow and to feel, we can better work on getting them to go that way!

In today's challenge email, she talks about how sleepiness or sleeplessness can take you to the Land of Bitter and Sour - I think I know this all too well! I'm a grumpy morning mama if I haven't had enough consistent sleep! Good sleep can really be key to your energy and mood levels each day.

So today the challenge asks, what is good sleep for you? For me, I at least need consistent sleep. I'm always the least well rested when the kids have been awake in the middle of the night, no matter how many total hours of sleep I end up getting.

Take this morning, for instance. I went to bed about 10:30pm last night, which is only about half an hour later than usual for me, but because it was Casey's last night off I wanted to stay up just a little bit later. I slept fairly well, but then Connor woke up at 5am.

I could hear him just tossing and turning for a few minutes, barely fussing. But then he gradually started fussing more, eventually leading to a full on cry. I knew that if I actually let him wake up that early, the both of us would end up having a horrid morning.

So I went into his room and made sure that he was okay and not stuck in his crib bars or anything (it happens). I gave him his pacifier, laid him back down, and left the room. He fussed for only another minute or two, but then fell back asleep.

At this point it's about 5:30am, and I laid back down and fell back asleep, dreading the alarm that I knew would be coming in just a short half hour at 6am. And when that alarm went off, I chose to ignore it and stay in bed, because the 5am interruption had left me much too tired to be up on time. I managed to squeeze in another half hour of sleep before Cavin came and crawled into bed with me and asked to go play a video game downstairs (which resulted in some attitude when I told him no!).

The point of the story: I don't do well with sleep interruptions! Good sleep for me is at least consistent, but of course I'd love to be getting around 8 hours too (not that that ever happens!).

Today's Rise & Shine Challenge is to think of your nighttime rituals, and to try to think of ways that you can foster an earlier bedtime. I'm happy to say that this is something I've already been working on for the last week or so!

I've switched up my night routines with getting the boys to bed, and through my efforts I've managed to push their 9pm bedtime down to about 8:30pm! It's only a half hour difference, but it gives them a little bit more sleep, and it gives me more time at night to get things done so that I can get to bed a littler earlier too. Just a little bit of extra sleep can make a huge difference!

If you haven't signed up for the challenge yet, but you'd love to know how to get more sleep and make your mornings better, I'd encourage you to go sign up! It looks like she'll be including the previous days' challenges in each email, so you won't miss out on anything!

Rise & Shine Challenge - Day 1

Hey guys!
I am so excited to be participating in a 10 day Rise & Shine Challenge from The Abundant Mama. This challenge is all about helping yourself to wake up earlier and get the most out of mornings, something that I'm trying really hard to work on lately!

I just finished working on the Marvelous Mornings mini series from The Peaceful Mom. While I got some great tips from that series and was really able to start getting the ball rolling on figuring out my mornings, I'm even more excited about the Rise & Shine Challenge because I think it makes such a difference to be able to follow a community that is actively going through the challenge together!

In fact, I heard about the challenge through my favorite blogger, Money Saving Mom, and Crystal there has set a goal to blog through the challenge, so I can't wait to follow through this with Crystal and the MSM community. I've also committed myself to blogging through the Rise & Shine Challenge, so I hope that you'll follow along with me!

You can sign up for the FREE challenge here, and each day's focus will be emailed to you every morning.

As for a quick recap on how my focus on mornings have been going so far, I'll be honest and tell ya that I haven't exactly been sticking to my early morning plans! My goal has been to wake up at 6 every morning, and be in bed by 10 every night. Of course with two littles in the house, things don't always go according to plan! So I've kind of been flip flopping the past week between getting myself prepped at night, and waking up early enough to get my day planned. I kind of play it by ear based on how each day goes, and I actually think I prefer it that way, rather than sticking to a strict planned schedule. I've still been getting everything I need to done, so I guess it's working!

But I'm hoping that this new challenge will give me the opportunity to take everything another step further and give me some new ideas and things to focus on for making my mornings better. With Cavin starting a short preschool class this week, I'm going to need a new routine in place!

So anyway, on to Day 1 of the Rise & Shine Challenge! 
Today's challenge asked us to think about three things: What do you want your ideal mornings to feel like? How do you want them to flow? And what sounds do you want to hear?

I want my mornings to feel relaxed and unrushed. I don't like feeling like I have too much on my plate in the morning, and I prefer to mostly take the time to get organized and plan out my day.

The flow of my "ideal morning" would probably include waking up in time to plan my day (including checking into my home management binder, making sure things are picked up, dishes are done, and everything is ready for when the boys wake up), get in some morning yoga, shower and get ready, and drink some coffee while reading a book or completing a daily bible study.
But unfortunately, with Cavin waking up between 6 and 6:30 every morning, I'd have to be up by 5 or 5:30 in order to accomplish all of that. And if I'm being real, I am just not ready to commit to being up that early! I need too much sleep to be waking up that early, and while I've been working on getting to bed earlier lately, I just can't make it work to get to bed early enough to have that kind of wake up time.


So for now, I'm sticking with a 6am wake up. This gives me at least a few minutes in the morning to get myself going, grab a cup of water (I like starting the day with a cup of water, and then moving on to the coffee!), and start planning my day. One of my favorite tips from the Marvelous Mornings mini series was starting the day with a "Brain Dump", where you take a sheet of paper and just write out every random thought, plan, idea that you have, and then organize them into a plan for the day.

I'll then get each of the kids situated as they wake up, and since they are *usually* in good moods in the morning, I'll still have time after they're awake to finish up whatever else I need to do. Of course for those days where they aren't so happy in the morning, I'll have to think of something else!


What does your ideal morning look and sound like? If you're interested in helping your mornings be better and focusing on waking up earlier, head on over to The Abundant Mama and sign up for the challenge!

Equivalents

One thing that I've been thinking about lately is trying to come up with some type of project or projects that I can I can work on on a regular basis, something fulfilling to do in the little bit of "me" time that I try to carve out for myself each day.

My first thoughts went automatically to some type of crochet project, since that is one of my favorite hobbies right now. But after thinking about it, I've realized that while I really enjoy crocheting, it's not exactly a fulfilling hobby. It's a fun way to kill time, sure, but I want to find something with a deeper meaning than that.

So then I turned my thoughts to photography. Photography has always been my passion, and it has been way too long since I've really focused on it. I studied digital photography at the Art Institute of Tucson for a short while, and I really do miss it sometimes.

One of my all time favorite photographers is Alfred Stieglitz. If you don't know who he is, I would challenge you to Google him. His portraits of Georgia O'Keeffe are stunning. But my favorite collection of his, possibly my most favorite photography collection ever, is titled Equivalents. The Equivalents collection is a series of photographs of clouds. It's the type of collection that most cannot appreciate in today's age, because to most people, they're just clouds.

But I have always found these pictures to be beautiful and inspiring, not only for their content but for the significance they held in the time period in which they were created. Stieglitz shot these photographs in the 1920's and 1930's and they were one of the first (if not the first) collections of photographs intended to be completely abstract. The whole point of them is that they would be free of any interpretation. At one point Stieglitz expressed a desire that one would think of music when looking at them.

I enjoyed these photographs so much that I'd even began my own "Equivalents" series, but after I left the Art Institute, I never finished. So this is my new project, to finish my Equivalents series. I think the funnest thing about this as a project is that there is no set ending to it. It's not like I need a certain amount of pictures, or enough of a particular style or content, and it's done. The project is done when it feels complete. And I am crazy excited to get started!

What about you?
If you're following, and I hope you are, I'd like to ask you a few questions. What makes you happy? What do you enjoy doing? And how often are you doing something that makes you happy, something that fulfills you? Think about it, and let me know (if you want) in the comments. I'd love to hear from you!

It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing!

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swiiiing!
I love that song. Fun fact: I love all swing music, really. But anyway, that's just a fun way of saying that I need to get back into the swing of things this week. It has been a looong weekend (yes, I know it's Tuesday, more on that later!), and I've been thrown out of my groove! So tonight I am focusing on planning and prepping for tomorrow and the rest of my week.

Casey's schedule already makes weekends a little weird for us every week because his days off are Sunday and Monday. So every week Saturday rolls around and I forget that everyone else is already on their weekend, because mine doesn't start until the next day! Well this week, Cavin's birthday party was on Saturday, so Casey had the day off. Yay! That would have given us a three day weekend. But today, Tuesday, Casey had the day off of work again in order to attend a special work award party that he'd been invited to - because he'd won an award! He's on his way home from that right now, so I don't have the details yet, but I'm excited to find out how it went!

But all of that summed up means a four day weekend! Which was amazing, because we got to spend a ton of time together just relaxing and playing with the kiddos. But the problem with that much relaxing was the tower of dishes in the kitchen threatening to spill all over the place. Too much relaxing makes me lazy all over again, and I have trouble getting back into "Go" mode.

See, I'm the complete opposite of the mom who is constantly in go mode, overworked with too much on her plate and too much to juggle. When I'm stressed, I don't add more to my plate, I just drop the plate and sit on the couch. It's a horrible habit really, and I'm trying so hard to work on it! I'm a really bad procrastinator, and when there's too much to do, I just don't do it. Even when there's not much to do, I have trouble doing it. My self-motivation skills are somewhat lacking. But really, I'm working on it! I guess my hope is just that I'm not the only one.

My favorite blogs, and my favorite women to follow online, all speak about a common theme quite often: hope for the woman who has too much on her plate, or how to simplify a too busy schedule. And while most of those resources do have some amazing advice on those subjects, I've realized that a lot of it doesn't really apply to me. Most days, I don't feel like I'm doing enough. I need to focus on my self-motivation and time management so that I can end the day feeling like I actually accomplished something. I'm not the only one, right? Please tell me there are other women like me! It's a harder thing to admit though, because it means admitting that you probably aren't working hard enough, and that's not something that anybody wants to freely admit.

So tonight I'm checking into my home management binder and planning for my day tomorrow. I've finally cleared out the dishes, and I even put together a delicious sounding crock pot breakfast casserole that will cook overnight. I've stayed up a little too late, so I don't know if I'll be up before the kids tomorrow. But at least I know that I've done my prep work tonight, which gives me an easier morning tomorrow no matter what time I wake up!

Birthday Party Fun

Successful Prepping

 

On Friday I blogged about how I am focusing on regaining my mornings so that I can better set my mood for each day. The three main components of this that I need to focus on are: 

1. Prepping the night before
2. Waking up before the kids do
3. Establishing a morning routine

I did really well with getting up and getting going on Friday morning, and it really did help me to get a great start to my mood and my day. So to keep the ball rolling on my successful mornings, I spent a decent amount of time Friday night prepping for Saturday morning. Because Saturday was Cavin's birthday party, I had an extra long prep list that included getting decorations and such ready, and making sure the apartment was clean for any visitors we might have after the party. I made my to do list and managed to cross off almost every item on it. I was able to go to sleep that night completely unstressed because I knew I was prepared for the next day! In fact, when my alarm went off at 6am Saturday morning, I turned it off and let myself fall back asleep. I knew that I'd done so much the night before to prepare for the day, that there really wasn't any reason for me to be up early that day. So I gave myself an extra half hour of sleep before I had to be up with Cavin. And it was an awesome feeling! 

Birthday Party Fun!

 

Cavin's fourth birthday party was on Saturday, and I still can't get over how happy I was at the turnout we had! We had so much family that was able to come, even though most of them had to drive two hours to be there! We are so grateful to everyone who made the effort to come and hang out with us for his birthday. Cavin had so much fun that he didn't want to leave. So thank you every body! I'm still waiting on pictures from the party, but once I have them I'll be posting them on my personal Facebook, and I'll throw a few on here as well.

We've spent the rest of the weekend working on all of the Lego sets he got for his birthday, and there are still several sets we haven't had the time to build yet! Cavin is loving all of his new sets, and Casey and I are actually having a lot of fun helping him build them. 

We ended Saturday by an awesomely successful shopping trip to Target. I love shopping when I save almost as much (if not more!) than what I spent. And the best part was that we used the gift cards we earned on that trip to buy ourselves some Starbucks! I love being able to save money in some areas so that we can spoil ourselves a little once in a while. I might post a break down of that trip later, just because we scored some really good deals!

My scheduling and routines have been thrown off because it is the weekend, but we've been enjoying spending time together as a family, playing and relaxing. I am hoping to get back on track with my morning routines tomorrow morning, because I know that I'll start falling behind on some things if I don't. The pile of dishes in the kitchen are an indicator that I'm already falling behind a little! But I know they'll still be there tomorrow, and for now, I'm going to enjoy today!

It's a Brand New Day

Today was a good day.
The kids weren't angels (they rarely ever are!). But Cavin mostly listened, and Connor mostly behaved, and usually that's all I need to make the day good. Connor enjoyed just sitting with me on the couch for a while, and Cavin was thrilled to play Disney Infinity with me for a little bit. My husband reaffirmed how amazing he is by mowing the lawn at my mom's house while my step-dad is out of commission from a bad hand injury. It was a good day.

The past couple of weeks I have noticed a common theme to a good portion of my grumpy days, and that is bad mornings. I'm always woken up earlier than I'd like by a crying infant or an insanely energetic little boy, and am forced to answer the demands of "but I want the chocolate poptart, not the strawberry one" or "I want milk, not water" or "But I haaate Mickey Mouse!" all while I'm still in a sleepy, foggy haze.
For a while, Cavin would always be the first one to wake up, and Connor wasn't usually awake for another hour or so. It was easy enough to get Cavin settled and get myself woken up a decent amount before Connor joined us. But lately they're up at the same time every morning, and my lack of any type of schedule or routine in the morning has left me feeling completely frazzled by 8am. And so I decided last night that my first step to regaining my overall sanity would be to focus on my mornings. 
It probably doesn't help that I don't like mornings, at all. I never have. In a perfect world, my kids would let me sleep until 9 or 10am, but unfortunately, that doesn't happen! But I've known for a while now that the answers to fixing my crazy mornings would be in just a few key changes (although for a person who doesn't like mornings, they're not as easy as they sound!):

1. Prepping the night before
2. Waking up before the kids do
3. Establishing a morning routine

I began my day by waking up at 6am. I know for some people, 6am is nothing. But for me, it's early! Surprisingly enough though, it wasn't terribly difficult to get out of bed this morning. I think it's because I began the day with intention, with a goal in mind. I knew that I wanted to regain control of my mornings, and that this was the first step to doing that. Getting to start the day on my own time and in my own way goes a long way to shaping my positive mood for the day. And knowing that I would have limited "me" time to prep for the day before one of the kiddos was up was enough to get me going! Since I'm still not used to getting up so early, I did move a little slow. I managed to check in to my home management binder, plan out my day, and complete day 1 of a "Marvelous Mornings" mini series that I'm doing. Today's project for the series was to think of things that you enjoy doing and that you would like to incorporate into your morning routine. For me, these things are journaling, reading, yoga, and drinking a cup of tea or coffee. Going forward, I'm hoping to include all of. or at least a mix of, these things into my daily morning routines.

The lesson in the first day of the mini serious included a quote that I really love, and that basically sums up this current journey of mine: "You have to find a way to meet your own needs so that you can meet the needs of your children". It's not about being selfish, it's about understanding that even though I am a mother, I am still my own person with my own needs that need to be met. When I am able to meet a few of my own basic needs, I am more willing and able to meet the needs of my children with a happy and graceful heart.