Motherhood

Categories: Emotions, Family, Motherhood

I Didn’t Lose Myself

This year, with our kids’ ages, I have felt more myself than I have in 9 years.

The past years have felt like a blur. At one point I had 3 kids 3 and under and it was like I was off to the races but the races never seemed to end.

Every day, every year, brought new challenges and new demands. Yes, times of incredible joy and memories I would never exchange. But if I’m honest, motherhood has been the hardest thing I have ever done.

And as I was reflecting on these past child rearing years, I felt what the world so often says to mothers – I was about to say, “I lost myself”.

But then in my heart I sensed a message that rings more true. A message that is much more accurate to my experience:

I didn’t lose myself, I gave of myself.

You see, I’ve still been here.

I just made a conscious choice to give of myself these past years.

And when the demands are high (and they are high with littles) it requires so much.

So much energy. So much time. So much emotional strength.

But now that my kids are getting older, I can already feel these demands changing. The roles changing. I am not needed in the same ways I have been these last intense years.

Yes, I am still very much in the thick of it, but as my kids age I’m feeling more myself than I have in a while.

I’ve listened to more music. I’ve read more books. I’ve traveled alone more. I make less breakfasts and lunches. It’s been glorious.

So dear friends, especially those of you with young ones, know that you’re still in there.

You’re not lost.

You’ve just chosen to give of yourself in a season when the needs and demands are very high.

I don’t believe you will ever regret making this choice. To lean into this calling and sacrifice yourself to raise and love these babies.

Keep on going.

One diaper at a time. One nursing/bottle session after another. One more PBJ. One more bandaid with a kiss.

You’re giving of yourself and it’s such a beautiful thing!

Categories: Family, Homeschool, Motherhood

Simplifying Our Schedules

I was asked to give a talk to our mom’s group at my church about simplifying our schedules and it was a great opportunity for me to process and put into words some things we’ve been learning as a family over the years. Listen to the video below to hear some of my thoughts on simplicity, family values, rest and how to prioritize what’s most important to us!

Categories: Emotions, Faith, Motherhood

For The Weary

I had raised my voice at my kids as I tucked them into bed because… well honestly, because they were being kids. And when I’m tired I wrongly expect them to act like adults and then get frustrated when they don’t. I then speak sternly to deliver my message and end the night on a terrible note, closing the door behind me. Not how I want the night to go and most certainly not how I desire to treat them.

Sigh.

Parenting can feel weary. Like a long road with no end in sight. Yes it is glorious and joy-filled and exciting – but it can also be very hard, very long, very unending. It can bring all the sin out of you again and again.

This particular night I left the room and slumped down defeated in another room, lights still off, and broke down crying.

Like cryyyyyying.

Have you ever had a moment like this? Where you just can’t hold it together anymore?

Let me tell you though, it felt so good.

I finally paused and poured out my emotionally exhausted heart to God and gave him all the things that were too heavy to hold.

(Why did I pick them up in the beginning?)

Remembering who God is and that he has purposes for all the things going on in my life was like putting down a backpack filled with bricks.

The difficult things we face are not things WE need to work out, strive for or labor through.

After all he is the potter, we are the clay.

These hard things in our lives are instead lovingly and beautifully crafted for us.

We’re gently invited to lean in to the hard things and watch him work – watch him sculpt and shape us into an even more dazzling reflection of himself.

And parenthood has been a sharp sculpting for me – in the best of ways. Because it regularly brings me to my knees recognizing how broken and weak I am apart from Christ.

As we face hard times, tiring times, things that feel insurmountable – let’s resist the urge to buckle down and try harder. Let’s cease trying to remedy and bandage our trials.

What if instead we paused, pulled off our work gloves, laid down our chisels and asked God:

“What do you have for me in this?”

Categories: Emotions, Motherhood

Moms + Shame : Changing the Narrative

Do you struggle with feeling not enough as a mom? Do you have regret, shame and guilt at the end of a day? Check out these thoughts that have been a game changer for me in breaking this shame cycle. Know that you’re not alone!

Categories: Emotions, Family, Homeschool, Motherhood

4 Steps to Help Your Child When They Meltdown

As a homeschooling mom (or parent in general) I encounter hundreds of meltdowns between my 3 kids and if I’m honest, it is EXHAUSTING.

Over the years I realized that I didn’t like how I reacted when my kids would meltdown. I felt like I couldn’t meet them emotionally, and in fact I would shutdown and disconnect, just hoping the screaming or crying would stop. I wasn’t able to help them healthily deal with their emotions.

If you’d like to hear a method for how to engage compassionately with your kids when they meltdown (which I have found actually calms and addresses the meltdowns more effectively) watch this video where I break it all down into 4 steps.

As mentioned in this video, here is the link to get the PDF that details out this method for those who are more visual or would like something you can print and revisit.

Download PDF : 4 Steps to Help Your Child When They Meltdown

Here’s our life/parent coach Amy Ferrell’s email. You can email her directly or message me and I can give more details about who she is and what our times with her have looked like. She’s gold!

Email : amyferrellpwp@comcast.net

I hope this will be as helpful for you as it has been for me! Connecting with our kids and their strong emotions is so valuable and worth the effort!

Feel free to reach out with any questions or thoughts you have, and subscribe if you’d like to be notified of new posts!

Categories: Emotions, Faith, Motherhood

My Hungry Crowd

Today I woke with a stinging awareness of my inability to meet my kids’ deep needs to be known and loved.

We had a day yesterday where I was reminded just how unable I am to meet their longings. Every child is different and will show their needs differently, but one of my children is very good at verbalizing what their needs are.

And the needs are endless.

Desiring to be cuddled. Desiring to be played with. Desiring to be read to. Desiring never to be alone.

And for this introverted, usually maxed out mom, I am left pouring from an empty cup.

After a day like yesterday I have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that I just can’t meet these needs.

But I woke this morning and felt a rally cry from within of, “Try harder”, “Today is a new day”, “You can do this” and “I’ll muster up more energy and really work at being present emotionally.”

I then stopped these thoughts.

Instead of trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps to work even harder today at meeting my kids’ needs, I chose to stand bare before the Lord and acknowledge my inability to be there for my kids.

It is quite freeing to come to terms with not being enough.

I am not enough for what my kids need and desire.

And rather than trying harder each day and pushing to believe that I CAN meet their every need, I want to face the truth head on.

I am not able to meet their every need. I am not their ultimate provider.

I am not God.

I felt reminded of the hungry crowd of 5,000 that needed to be fed. Sometimes my 3 kids can feel like that crowd. And Jesus’ disciples could only scrape together five loaves and two fish.

Talk about coming up short.

Jesus could have responded with, “Seriously? You think this is going to be enough? Look at how large this crowd is and how hungry they are!” But instead he lovingly said, “Bring them here to me.”

He had the crowds sit down and he took the small amount of food and said a blessing.

“Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied.” Matthew 14:19-20

They ALL ate and were SATISFIED.

I see myself in the disciples’ shoes in this story.

Jesus didn’t demand of the disciples to bring him enough food to feed that crowd. He didn’t say, “Well, if you can’t manage to find enough food then the crowd will just go hungry.”

He took what they had, the gapingly small amount in comparison to the massive need, and he multiplied it. HE multiplied it. Not the disciples. Not the crowd. Only Jesus.

It is so freeing to recognize and acknowledge we are not enough. Jesus is not asking us to rise to the occasion to be enough. We simply are to bring him what we have, as small and insufficient as the portion may be.

It is Jesus who meets the needs of the crowds.

It is Jesus who meets the needs of our children.

It is Jesus who meets OUR needs.

He takes what we have and then HE provides for all the needs.

As my kids present me with needs I just can’t meet because of my physical and emotional limitations, I want to be honest with myself and with them.

Rather than trying to cover up my inability to provide by trying harder or mustering up more energy to be there for them, I want to accept that I am not enough.

To share with them that I am not enough to meet their needs. To point them to Jesus who IS enough to meet their needs.

And together we can be reminded of a God who cares for us and provides for all we need.

I can allow my lack of energy and lack of emotional capacity to be used as a window that ushers in the light of the gospel and exposes my kids to their ultimate need for Jesus. Not for mommy.

We can rely on him together.

So today, as I am aware that I fall short in meeting my children’s needs, I hope to rest in the truth that I am not enough.

My weaknesses provide an amazing opportunity to sit back and watch how Jesus feeds his people – how he will tend to my crowd of 3 and allow them to all eat and be satisfied by him.

Categories: Family, Homeschool, Motherhood

A Day in the Life of a Homeschool Mom

Let me show you what a typical day of homeschooling looks like for us! As with all days and weeks, know that this is reflective of one of our best days (only showing our 5 second highlight reels!) and that we have our fair share of ups and downs just like any other family. We had a lot of fun putting this together – I hope you enjoy seeing our day unfold!

Categories: Motherhood

It’s Just Too Much

I was standing in the front doorway watching the kids run all over the yard in the rain when I heard the basement door open up and my husband call upstairs asking, “Maryn? Do you know the kids are outside in the front yard running in the rain?”

I kind of laughed, saying, “Yes, I know. I’m watching them!”

And what’s funny about this is that his question was not outlandish. Although my first response in my head was, “Of course I know where they are! Do you think I’d let them escape the house and run around like wild animals in a rainstorm without me knowing??” But then after a second I realized the sincerity in the question.

Since he’s been working from home there’s actually been several instances when I’ve gone to the bathroom and the kids have busted into his office downstairs during conference calls and I’ve had no clue what’s happening until I get a text from him asking for help. So it makes total sense that he thought maybe I was detained and they took advantage, making a run for it like a pack of wolves.

I also realized another reason he probably thought to check with me is because it must have taken him by surprise to see our kids out in the rain living their best lives. It would have seemed very out of character for me to have agreed to let them do that.

You see for years it has rained and sometimes the kids would ask to play in it, and I have notoriously said no. Even though I guessed this was an old wive’s tale, I’d tell myself being wet and cold can make kids sick so it’s best to pass. But if I’m honest, the real reason I would say no is because of all. the. work. I didn’t want them sopping wet, requiring a change of clothes upon reentry, me needing to dry the now wet clothes followed by cleaning the grassy slippery floor they left behind. Too much. Just too much.

And I thought about what made today so different. Why was I willing to say yes today after 7 years of saying no? (That’s right, this was the FIRST time my kids have played in the rain. Adventure-seeking is not my strength.)

It was one of those moments when you step back and realize how things used to be, and how they are now. I think I said yes this time because I had the energy to say yes. I had the emotional capacity to say yes. Cleaning up the kids after playing in the rain didn’t feel like a huge weight being laid on my shoulders like it would have a couple years ago. It felt easy to see the joy it would bring them and the small cost it would take to make that experience possible for them. In the past it always felt too exhausting. It was much easier to see all the work it would entail instead of the joy, especially when I was drowning in life with 3 very small kids.

So for those of you who are still in the thick of it with all the babies and all the toddlers, keep fighting and moving forward. One step in front of the other, one day after the next. I know everyone tells you the years go by quick and it won’t always be this hard. But even when I heard those things I still doubted what they said, thinking they don’t know my level of exhaustion and the daily grind I face. It won’t let up for me. I’ll always be in this fog.

But I’m happy to report that things have turned a corner for us. Somewhere in the last couple years there’s been a shift. The kids are more self-sufficient. Not on major things, but on enough minor things that we have felt relief in our days. I am not always wiped out, stressed out, or deeply fatigued. I have more energy than I’ve had in years past and I feel little glimpses like our rain day illuminates just how far we’ve come. I’m not too tired to say yes to wet clothes and grassy floors.

Your thing may not be playing in the rain, but whatever it is that you feel you just can’t handle because it’s too much, know that one day you might easily say yes to it because you’ll be at a different place and a different season.

Categories: Family, Motherhood

When The Growing Gets Tough

I’ve only been parenting for 7 years, so in many ways I still very much feel like a beginner. But as the years have gone on, I’ve sensed some patterns that have caused me to pause and reflect.

With kids, everything is constantly changing and evolving. As soon as you feel like you’ve figured one thing out, they decide to keep growing up and you have to adjust to their next phase.

I can remember little things, like all the sleep training. We’d get in a rhythm and I’d feel like we figured nap schedules out and the next week a new challenge would surface like their ability to roll over or stand up or eventually crawl out of the crib that kept them so safely contained.

Now as our kids are slowly (or is it rapidly?) exiting the toddler phase, I’ve begun to notice that over the years we seem to routinely hit times of frustration. Tensions and frictions that emerge and hold my mind’s attention.

It may start off slow and unnoticed, but as time goes on it builds until it is “the thing” we are talking about and trying to figure out how to handle – our current parenting puzzle that needs solving.

In past times I would just sit in the frustration of the trial and feel hopeless.

Like, “Well this is really hard and I feel defeated. I really think she’ll grow up and always scream in car rides. Forever. Even when we make the drive to drop her off at college she’ll probably still be screaming.”

And I’d just wallow and assume that things will always stay the same in the hardness of that situation.

But as this pattern has been emerging, I’ve been trying to train myself to look at these tensions, these friction points in parenting, through a new lens.

A counselor of mine had shared one time that when kids start to push back or you feel their little wills come out again and again, they may be at a place where it’s time to give more freedoms. That’s their way of showing you they’re ready for more choices, more autonomy.

We are raising them to one day be fully independent so it makes sense that over time we would need to be expanding their territories of freedom.

I’m just never really good at knowing when those times have arrived.

So I’m starting to realize the pattern of how these growth spurts show me when it’s time to give more freedom.

Now when I sense a tension or friction point, something that we continue to feel like we’re beating our heads against a wall again and again and again, I try to look at it as a lesson to learn rather than a circumstance to feel discouraged in.

It’s a growing pain.

And these growing pains show me we are not hopeless with a hard situation, but that the difficulty I’m feeling might actually be the introduction of our next phase with that particular child.

Where I’m usually tempted to throw my hands up and assume things will always be difficult, I’m trying to train myself to remember the friction might be our indicator that growth is around the corner.

When I realize the thing that’s causing us parenting woes might actually be a spotlight guiding us to our next stage with this child, it is such a welcomed tension and becomes a hope-filled situation.

Perspective is everything isn’t it?

When I view these (not so) little road bumps as the beginnings of a growth spurt, it has been so helpful.

I am quicker to ask questions like, “What is God doing here? What is at the root of this tension? Do you think this kickback/attitude/frustration we are experiencing could be a friction point indicating she’s ready (and hungry) for more freedoms and choices? What things can we do to loosen our grip and give the next level of growth for her?”

I’ve usually found when my thinking changes to question asking instead of feeling dismay, oftentimes there are solutions on the horizon that can be implemented and the tensions then slowly transition.

That is, until the next one arises.

Oh parenting. You are so good at throwing curve balls!

Raising kids is always a learning process and has easily been one of the most humbling things I’ve ever done.

Have you experienced a similar pattern where you feel something becomes difficult until growth happens and then it settles into its new stage? Any tips you’ve learned for navigating these growing pains?

Categories: Family, Motherhood

But I Know I Will Forget

“I gave you a sparkle!” she said with a squeal as she touched me and ran past on to her next adventure. Her touch gave me an electric shock and her words to describe what she experienced have hung with me ever since. I hope they never leave me. This phrase is just one of many I try to cling to, hoping I never forget.

But I know I will forget.

There will be more phrases, more squeals, more adventures and I will grab on to the next ones as I let go of the old ones without even realizing time is moving forward.

I will, however, let go.

Just like I did your 6 month booties, your swaddle blankets and your baby crib. The precious wild words that you say will soon be replaced with sentences that make sense and are accurate. The wonder and awe of a child’s vocabulary will soon dissolve as growth and time take root and their language becomes more advanced.

I love watching you grow, and I hate saying goodbye, all of which happens side by side, over and over again as the years pass.

Hello to the new you, goodbye to the old you. It’s like we continue to meet for the first time.

You’re always changing and it’s exciting and new. It is also mournful as we part ways with the you of the past, the phrases that we’ve grown to love.

The phrases you’ve said that are like old worn rugs. We trade those in for new ones and we wipe our shoes on them until suddenly, without warning, the rug is gone and a new one stands in its place. You never know when will be the last time until you look back and realize you must have already experienced it without knowing that’s what it was.

The last “hold me”, the last “can I sit on your lap?”, the last “can you read it one more time?”

Watching your child grow up is like seeing the changing of the guards, over and over and over again. Some days I welcome the changes while other days I go down fighting for them to stay the same.

I will definitely miss the day when I don’t hear “I gave you a sparkle” again.