I have been really busy with parent education and coaching this week. I don't know if it was the fall out from the exhaustion everyone is feeling from last week, the "super moon" or we are still trying to adjust to daylight savings time, but the thing I have heard the most this week is this:
"Please tell me this will get better."
And I have told over 20 families this week- "I promise it will."
I hear your exhaustion. I hear your frustration. I hear you say that you don't know what you are doing. I understand that some days feel mind numbing.
I hear you as you tell me through tears that you really wanted to spank your child when he threw his sippy cup at his three month old sister and hit her square on the head. I hear you as you don't tell me that you feel more angst over your own guilt about wanting to spank him than the lump on your baby's head.
I hear you when you say you are too afraid to ask for help from your family because you were always the one that held it together. I hear you as you don't tell me that you think asking for help is a sign of weakness in your opinion.
I hear you as you tell me that your day was "really good and the baby actually napped for two hours and I started to get really nervous because I wondered if she was still breathing because she never naps that long..."
I hear you as you don't tell me that you are dress rehearsing tragedy because things were just a little too good today and you can't believe that you are actually doing so well with this mothering.
I hear you as you tell me that your Mom thinks that you should "give the baby a bottle for god's sake and get out of the house for a while and that she doesn't understand that you can't seem to pump" and you feel like it's just so much work to leave without the baby.
I hear you when you tell me that your partner still looks a little too "refreshed" on the return home from work. All you want is a shower but the baby just couldn't be put down today. For the third day in a row.
I hear you when you ask me "why the hell did no one tell me that this is so fucking hard? Why did I not know about how I would feel after having the baby?" and I hear you when you don't say that you feel isolated and that you must be the only one that feels this way which makes you even harder on yourself. I hear you when you tell me that no one says "thanks" for anything and that you feel like this is the most thankless thing you have ever done. Please wait, lovely.
We all feel this way. We all struggle. So much. We all need the village. The village that doesn't exist. We all wish we could ask for help without feeling like we are failing just because we want that help. We all wish we had people we could call on for help. Help without judgement. Help that would nurture us, love us, and tell us "yeah, this is so hard. This is overwhelming. This will get better."
Because it will get better. Tiny humans will wipe their own bums. By the time your youngest is three you will get sleep (I know, that sounds hellish- it is such a long time, hang on...) you will get regular showers (I didn't say daily- sometimes it takes us a while to get back into a groove) and you will feel that you can sit down and drink a HOT beverage.
In the meantime, however, how do we survive? We survive by kissing the faces of our tiny humans a hundred times a day. We take a big breath when they fall asleep and we can sneak out of the room without waking them. We celebrate the tiny little victories (you fed and didn't get barfed on, you ate breakfast before lunch time, you got to poop without a hand sliding under the closed door, you dried your hair with an actual hair dryer) and then you schedule in time for yourself every.single.day.
Self care is a buzzword for Mamas. I like to think of it as taking care of ourselves too. We are the cog in the machine of our families and we need to be cared for in order to keep things running. Yes, there are days when the cog will need to be changed out, to be replaced and to just stop for a bit, but daily maintenance will make the cog's job so much easier. The well analogy is also popular and a great metaphor- you can't give from a dry well.
A busy Mom of three boys told me the other day that she gets breakfast once her kids are set up for the day. I told her to sit with her boys and eat breakfast with them. She paused, exhaled and looked at me. I asked her if she ever considered "second breakfast?" and she replied no. Second breakfast is what we give ourselves when the kids are out the door to school, are watching Paw Patrol quietly or is what we can do as we sit at our work stations before the day starts. First breakfast with the kids means you are sitting with your children, showing them that your needs have to be met too. Eating with them is, in their eyes, a way to connect with them. Second breakfast is just for you, in peace, a beautiful pressure valve to let off steam or just not think.
It will get so much better. In a way. Tiny humans become more self sufficient. Bedtime routines become so much more streamlined. School comes along and a whole new series of transitions and changes happen. Time takes on a new meaning and expectations change. We grow, we question, we need support in different forms. We start to find out how we want to be in the world based on what comes up for us in our parenting journey. We falter. We rupture the relationships with our kids. We do the repair. We hold our breath as they wait to hear about their post secondary acceptance (honestly it felt like they were entering kindergarten and then were off to university) and we are taken back to the bullying they suffered in grade 5. Exclusion by peers, adult "cliques" on sports teams and toxic environments are navigated by both ourselves and our children. We learn that how we model our struggles in life is being ever so closely watched by our children. And we check in with ourselves. Our self awareness in our every day interactions becomes more important than ever.
We laugh at inappropriate jokes with our children as they age. We have a glass of wine with our daughter as she comes home for the weekend. We visit their place of work to steal a hug. We snuggle our adult children as they cry over broken relationships. And they buoy us. We kissed their little faces a hundred times a day and now we stand back, their faces in our hands, tears streaming down our own faces and we marvel at the way they love us. We check in every day to see how the next job pursuit is going, how the new graduate program is working out and what is going on with their roommates. We plan suppers together, we make dates to go see our favourite authors together, we loan out our vehicles to hopefully make their lives a little bit easier and our love for them grows even bigger. Every day. We check in with each other via text to say "I heard from her and she thinks the interview went well" to the reply of "excellent- he's coming to stay tonight after the hockey game, so I'm really excited that we will have dinner with him tomorrow night, and look, this is the picture she sent me of her in her outfit of her first day of practicum."
Then, we'll sit back and look at the texts. With our reading glasses on, even with the enlarged font. And we'll remember how they really haven't changed that much since the 90's when they were born. And we will miss the chaos that was three kids in four years. And we won't. This easier aspect is beautiful. And it's hard. And it is coming your way. I promise. You too will sit down one day at the end of the week, dog curled up at your side, the house tidy and a glass of wine in your hand. You'll recount the happenings of the week, without being interrupted even once. You'll sip your wine, pull out your phone and go over the texts from your kids and laugh. And you'll remember. You won't spend all day Saturday doing load after load of laundry. You'll cook too much and have a freezer full of food because it takes time to adjust to cooking for just two. You'll feel anxious, and worried, because you can't go and open their bedroom door and once you've recovered from THAT smell that is adolescent bodies and angst see them peacefully sleeping. You won't wake up in the morning and count the shoes at the door, exhaling that they made it home safely.
You'll still wake at night, hoping they are okay. You'll wonder how much you damaged them/fucked them up/ because of your own trauma. You'll tell them you are sorry a million times and really really hope they understand that from the bottom of your heart you mean it. You'll ache as they pull away, you'll feel helpless because you can't take away their adult pain and you'll revel in the fact that they still want to come to you to talk about the hard stuff. And you will listen, heart wide open, and tell them that life is hard. Life is not fair. Life may seem at times that it is doing nothing but plotting our demise. Then, lovely the wait is over. "Thanks for listening and just hearing what I have to say" "I feel so much better" "You are right" "I love you" comes across your telephone and you finally exhale. And you cry. This is better. This is still hard and these emotions are so big, dammit. But so good. It's coming for you, I promise. Feel these big emotions every day. Don't love every minute. Because you can't and you shouldn't.