I’ve been posting a bit less about fitness and nutrition lately.
Instead, I’ve been writing more about parenting, career and general life musings instead. These areas have been top of mind for me. Much more so than the minutia of fitness and nutrition.
Don’t worry, we’ll be back to all of that soon. And really, it hasn’t gone anywhere.
If you’ve been hanging here with me for any amount of time, you know I love talking about seasons. I’m currently in a phase where I’m automating my fitness and nutrition quite a bit. I’m eating the same things on rotation and doing workouts designed for me. I’m not dedicating a lot of brainpower or creativity to my fitness or meals right now. I’m just falling back on habits that work for me.
Automating my fitness and nutrition has been a great lesson in keeping things simple, instead of throwing all of my habits out the window, when other things are more important or need more attention. Besides, I can live off of this for breakfast and tortilla pizza for lunch and dinner.
Stages of Motherhood
While motherhood is certainly getting a bit less physically demanding these days, I’m feeling all the emotions lately. We’re not planning to have more kids so when I get rid of baby things it feels weird. Exciting, but also sad. It seems like all of a sudden my youngest son is no longer little. He’s a boy, not a baby. On top of that we’re starting to have more adult-ish conversations with my nearly 7-year-old. We’re talking a lot about feelings, work ethic, generosity, patience, practice and being a little uncomfortable. And yes, doing the hard stuff.
Last week I posted about what felt like a mom-fail to me. You know what? It resonated with many of you and I’ve since had several conversations with you about your own kids going through similar things. You wonder if your anxiety is wearing off on them. You have trouble deciding how much structure to provide your kids. Are you getting in enough family time or are they too involved in sports, community, etc? You’re starting to see that each kid needs different types of rules and varied amounts of structure to thrive. You struggle with letting your kids truly deal with their emotions and you’re not always sure when to intervene. Amen – I’m right there with you, mamas.
Being Unapologetically You as a Mom
I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m officially in my late thirties, but I’ve become so much more comfortable lately with being unapologetically me, quirks and all. I’m giving a whole lot less care to what people think of who I am. I’ve been a bit more vulnerable and I’m okay with sharing things that might not be popular opinion. I’m embracing being the mom I am, not the mom I thought I’d be.
While I think most of us have a vision of what we’ll be like as a mom, it’s important to note, we also have ideas about what our kids will be like. When the reality of these situations is different than what we imagined, and it will be, it can be tempting to try to force things back into the hole you thought your family would fit in.
Be exactly who you are. Let your kids be exactly who they are.
What if you decided to be the mom you are, not the mom you envisioned you’d be before you had kids? And definitely not the mom you’re feeling pressured to be now. I’m not going to be a PTO mom and I suck at arts and crafts. I don’t particularly love playing make-believe either. Okay, I actually hate it. But, I love playing soccer, riding bikes, building legos, coloring, reading, baking and cleaning with my kids. We also love to snuggle on the couch and watch movies. I know…screen time.
While you’re at it, what if you simply decided to love each of your kids for uniquely who they are? Not who you thought they would be or who you think they should be for some reason or another. To trust that they are going to be exactly the fascinating individuals they’re meant to be?
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