Hands Free Mama

Ok, I know I said I was going to expand on my last post, but...I lied. At least I'm being honest. ;) I just read a post from Rachel Macy Stafford called The Important Thing About Yelling. <--Click on the link to check it out..I promise you won't regret it. This article REALLY struck home for me...I have been known to have a temper at times. Particularly in the past two years of single mommyhood. I have to admit I lost it on several occasions with my kids. Always on one of my "bad" days that I talked about in my last post. And usually when my son woke up one of many times each and every night of his life (he is still struggling with that actually) or when my daughter was throwing a rare tantrum or refusing to potty train, etc. Being a single mom is NO excuse to be a bad parent, BUT, just to give you the back story, I spent the first year and a half of my son's life in a horrible depression, with very little family around for support, working my usual full-time job, along with another part-time job at home, while the kids went to daycare 40-50 hours a week. I also had to do all the cooking, cleaning, bath time, potty training (or lack of), chauffeuring, bill paying, grocery shopping, errand-running, teeth brushing, yada, yada, yada. If a mother's work is never done, then a single mother's work is...well, I'm sure you can imagine, impossible. I was in survival mode, but looking back, I would probably not even call it surviving. It was hell. It's still not an excuse, but by the time I took care of everything that NEEDED to be done, I had zero time and energy left for my kids...and they suffered for it. I was SO exhausted every single day, that when something went wrong, I couldn't even think of a good way to handle the situation...I just blew up. I'm sure all of the moms out there have lost it at least once on their children. But what I liked about this post was that Rachel talks about how our actions, or reactions, as parents, are being watched...very closely, by the people that are the most important to us in the world. And nothing has ever motivated me more than knowing that my kids are watching...and picturing them growing up to be like me (in those moments of anger) is just unacceptable. I have to admit that things have become IMMENSELY better in the past 5 months, since we moved to Ohio. I am not stressed, or frazzled, or exhausted (to that extent anyway) anymore and I have been able to focus SO much more time and attention on my babies and I think it has been good for all three of us. Add to that the attention they are getting from their grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins, whom they barely knew prior, and my kids are finally getting a smidgen of the life I've always felt they deserved but could never give them single-handedly. I am still not as good of a mother as I would like to be, but I'm learning. I think we finally figure out how to be good parents about the time our kids don't need us to be parents anymore. That is just how life works sometimes. But, I will keep doing my research and learning new things and hoping my kids will inherit all of my good traits and forget about all my bad ones! I am excited to read Rachel's book, Hands Free Mama, which I just pre-ordered as I'm writing this! If anyone wants to read it with me, get your copy & comment below or send me an email...I would love to chat about it!

k.