As a mom of two (or any amount of kids for that matter) I find that my time to sit and do what I want is about 5 minutes a day. That equals two trips to the bathroom to pee. That’s it. All my time outside of that is dedicated to my kids, even during sleep (since the baby has gone from sleeping through the night to being up 3-4 times). I feel obscenely selfish for even wanting time to myself, to do whatever I please. At this point that ‘whatever’ would be crafting. For the few times I seem to be physically separated from the baby, I have tons of housework to catch up on. My mom isn’t staying with us this week, and already the kitchen is a disaster and the laundry is piling up. She motivates me to keep a clean house just by the fact that she’s here.
I hate to ask for time for me. I hate to ask for help. I hate to seem that I can’t handle it. I can handle it, I just want to reconnect with myself every once in awhile. You know, the hobbies, passions, and friendships that make you who you are, outside of being a mom. What is it about women, about moms, that have us hardwired to refuse help or admit weakness? What I want to know is how the hell moms with lots of kids do it? I’m sure behind the scenes they are pulling their hair out too, or maybe just have found some secret way to wrangle five kids to baths, meals, sports, school, homework, and playtime. Sounds silly, but Paige from Mommycast is my role model when it comes to this. Granted, when I’ve met up with her in person, we are at conferences and neither of us have our kids with us – so our minds are clear and we’ve generally had more sleep. But still… five kids and she’s got it together!
My husband is smarter than I am though. He let me sleep in to 12:30pm on Sunday and took the kids out for breakfast. My ‘me’ time was sleeping, but I’ll take it! In order for me to get any sanity and exercises my creativity anytime before my kids are in college, I need to finish up on that home reorganization project I started.
PS – My husband rocks. He just called and suggested that we head out to Chili’s for dinner – being I was home all day with the kids and a killer migrane. I love him so much.
