Category Archives: Adjusting to parenthood

What fills your soul?

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I used to play golf, I used to ski, I used to swim, I used to walk around the lake, in fact I used to do a lot of things back when I had lots of time for myself. That all changed when my husband and I had our first child. At first I tried to handle everything myself from feeding, dressing and changing the baby to cleaning the house and cooking food for the whole family. I nearly had myself convinced I was okay with trying to juggle everything at once but alas, after a few weeks I reached a breaking point and finally admitted to my husband that I needed help. I was miserable and didn’t really understand why. I had been told that being a mother was amazing and would be so fulfilling. There were definitely moments when it felt amazing but for the most part it just felt exhausting.

On top of this, I felt guilty for thinking it was exhausting. I wanted to be above being human and feeling exhausted. I wanted to be a super mom who could do it all and still have energy left to burn. As I was trying to figure out how to adjust to all this, a friend asked me a really important question: what gives you energy?  [Note: I’ve blogged about this before, but was reminded that I still have to be mindful of this!] Truthfully I’d never really thought of it, but it was a great question. In many ways, we’re like those ubiquitous smart phones that none of us can seem to live without. We depend on them for a variety of critical activities during the day, but also need to recharge them or they become useless. After thinking about the question again, I shared with my friend that I could tell them what sucked up my energy, but couldn’t come up with one thing that was recharging it.  I realized I had been giving all of my energy away and hadn’t taken the time to figure out how to get any of it back.

After some further reflection, I decided that in order for me to determine what could give me energy I needed to figure out what filled my soul. One thing came to mind right off the bat: talking to my husband about anything other than the kids or work like we used to do when we were dating. He and I had often remarked how nice it was and how connected we felt after one of these in-depth conversations. As I continued to seek out what filled my soul, I realized that connecting with others in general gave me a good deal of satisfaction, whether with girlfriends over dinner or tea or other new parents with whom I could share knowledge and hopefully help out.

I had the pleasure of spending a long weekend with some very dear friends recently. It’s an annual tradition that’s always a wonderful time for us to relax, connect and take care of ourselves without the stress of having to look after our families. I go home after our trip each year feeling full. I don’t have as much spare time as I used to so I have to take advantage of these opportunities to get back to myself, one recharge at a time.

Spring Forward! Time to adjust the clocks…and yourself

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When I woke up on March 11th, I was reminded that all of the clocks in the house needed to be moved forward one hour. Ugh! I lost an hour. Time is the most important thing I have and losing an hour due to something completely outside of my control is maddening.  My husband tried to remind me of the upside, “At least the kids slept until 7 today!”

There are things I love about daylight savings time: longer days, blooming flowers, and the knowledge that summer isn’t that far away.  But I’m not so fond of the sun–though I desperately miss it in the winter months–keeping my children up late. Before kids I loved the longer days, with kids? Not so much.

I read up on some ways to help children adjust to the change like keeping them up a little later or darkening their rooms by putting curtains over the blinds, but none of them worked.  However, our children seem to have figured out how to adjust on their own. They go to bed at their normal bedtime but instead of falling asleep right away, they stay up playing in their beds or talking to each other. Despite falling asleep a little later, they seem to be well rested when they wake in the morning so I’m not too worried about it.

I wish I could adapt to change so easily.

The biggest change I’ve had to adjust to in my life was becoming a parent.  I thought I knew what I was getting into—less sleep and more responsibility—but there was so much more to it than that. The obscene amount of caffeine I would ingest, the frantic feeling of all the things I needed to learn and do, the overwhelming sense of frailty that comes with taking care of this little life, the “no touch zone” I instituted from my armpits to my knees with my husband for a period following our son’s arrival and an identity crisis I never saw coming. I did adjust to each of these things over time. On our son’s first birthday my husband and I raised a glass of sparkling cider to celebrate. We felt like we were finally starting to adjust.

I’m better equipped for change now and I’m always working to learn and prepare for the next chapter in our child-rearing journey. Part of this adjustment has been the acceptance that not everything is under my control and things won’t always go as planned. There will always be some adjustment needed no matter how much I plan. Just like trying to prepare yourself for when the sun will come out during daylight savings. You know it’s coming and you can prepare all you want but ultimately you just figure out how to adjust to it once its here.