children Archives - TheSanityPlan

Dear Mom, Look for Love All Around You

February 13, 2017 By Sara M. 12 Comments

Sometimes the ways that our family shows us love is in the smallest of things, the nuances. These little moments are easily lost between the hustle and the bustle.

Amidst the whirlwind of raising young kids, take a moment today. Take the time to stop, breathe, and look for the love that is already surrounding you. You might be surprised by what you’ll see:

The love is in the flower that your daughter picks just for you.

The love is in the cup of coffee your husband fixes for you because he knows just the way you like it.

The love is in your baby’s arms wrapped tightly around your body; belly to belly, wrapped in your warmth.

The love is in the way your daughter wants to be just like you; her favorites are your favorites.

The love is in how your tired toddler lays his head on your shoulder at the end of the night, instinctively finding the perfect nook for resting.

The love is in how your toddler son looks over his shoulder to see if you are watching him.

The love is in your child choosing you to read them a story at the end of the night.

The love is in your husband jumping in to handle the kids when he sees you’re struggling to get dinner ready.

The love is in his voice when he tells you that you’re beautiful.

The love is in their cry for you when they’ve scraped their knees, and your magic kiss is enough to take the pain away.

The love is in how hard he works to provide for the family you’ve created together.

The love is in how they call for you in the middle of the night when they are scared of a bad dream.

The love is in the way she needs you.

The love is in the way your daughter doesn’t want to share you with anyone else.

The love is in the way their little bodies give in to the heaviness of sleep, trusting in the comfort of your arms.

The love is in the way your toddler pushes away to show his independence but keeps coming back to show you he still needs you.

The love is in how your partner knows you so well and can tell when there is something bothering you.

The love is in your child wanting to share her food with you.

The love is in the picture he takes of you when it seems to you that you aren’t doing anything special at all.

The love is in how he helps pick up the house without complaint.

The love is in how they seek you out first thing in the morning, happy to be awake to see you again.

The love is in how he loves your children.

The love is in the joy that lights up their face when they’ve missed you.

The love is in how he hears your struggles and wants to help you find a solution even if it’s not exactly the one you wanted.

The love is in the way they cry when you lay them down to sleep because being in your arms was pure bliss.

The love is in the way your child says okay and finally does what you’ve told them to do.

The love is in the things they repeat back from lessons you’ve taught them over time.

The love is in how he gives his undivided attention when you have something important you have to say.

The love is in the way a hand slips into yours when you hold your hand out; no words need to be exchanged.

The love is in how you are the most important person to them in the world, and even forever would not be enough time to spend together.

Look beyond the hugs and kisses to find the ways that love is woven into this life you have created.

Do it today as a celebration of love, but it most importantly, look for the love every day.

A Young Mom Loses Her Battle With Cancer

December 22, 2016 By Sara M. Leave a Comment

My good friend’s sister died this week. She lost her battle with tongue cancer, claiming her life less than a year from her initial diagnosis.

She was only 42 years old.

It’s been haunting us ever since we heard the news. Not one day goes by that it doesn’t come up. We give voice to her memory and mourn for her husband and her children. There is something that feels so wrong about burying a young woman, a young mom.

My husband and I went to the wake on Tuesday to show our support for the family.

Her husband didn’t look any different than the last time I saw him, but his whole world had changed. He had watched his beloved wife struggle with the cancer. He was by her side when she had most of her tongue removed and could barely talk or eat. She suffered through radiation, only to have 3 cancer-free weeks before the tumors began to grow again. And it came back more aggressively than before. Her death marked a final relief from the daily suffering that her life had become.

Her husband is left behind to try to explain to their two boys, 3 and 5, that their mommy is never coming home. He held his head up, showing the unbelievable strength that he will need in years to come, as he explained to us the conversation he’d had with them. He had done some research, and ultimately decided that he had to tell them the blunt truth. That their mom was dead and gone forever. He worried that saying she “passed away” or “had moved on” would only serve to confuse them. He told us that the 5-year-old seemed to comprehend, but the 3-year-old didn’t yet. I doubt either of them will truly understand their loss until much later. My heart aches at the thought of them growing up without their mother.

Her father was the most coherent as I have seen him in years, despite his Alzheimer’s. It’s as if the shock and pain of having to bury his daughter jaunted him back to the current moment with sharp clarity. He stood stoically as a video montage of photos of his daughter played, silent tears streaming down his face. The only sign of his disease that day was his misbuttoned shirt and his backwards shoes that had been overlooked by everyone in their grief.

My friend, her brother, was in obvious pain but holding it together for his family. He had been in the hospital the night before, with blood pressure off the charts. They only let him leave because of his sister’s funeral, but they would have preferred to keep him for further testing. I watched him accept condolences and comfort his own teenage children.

The funeral home was filled with people when we left. People were saying their goodbyes to his sister or clustered around portraits scattered around the room. The pictures told the story of a joyful life that ended way too soon.

I am so sad for those two little boys who have to grow up without their mama. It truly hits home for me because my babies are so close in age at just 2 and 4. What would it be like for them if I were just gone one day? I can’t even imagine the hole in a young child’s heart that is caused when their mother dies. How many questions will they have one day about who she was and what she was like?

I wondered what our life would be like if I lost my husband. Would I be strong enough to carry on? Could I raise our family on my own? “Of course, you would,” my husband assured me, “You’d have to.” I know I would, but it would be devastating.

My heart hurts for this family. And it puts our small problems and minor complaints into their proper place, reminding us to be grateful for all that we have. We have a wonderful and healthy family, and we get to be whole for Christmas and this holiday season. And with good fortune, our children will grow up knowing support and love from both their mother and father.

Hey Mom, Stop Trying to Do It All!

December 19, 2016 By Sara M. 15 Comments

What do you think would happen if you stopped trying to do everything on your own? Stopped jumping in to be the first person to change the baby, grab a toddler a cup of water, or offer to set up a doctor’s appointment for your husband?

What would happen?

Are you scared that everything would fall apart?

Do you think that you are the only one that can do it correctly?

Do you feel like you should do it, because it’s your job?

Well, stop.

Take my word and try it out. What’s the worst that can happen? Things don’t get done, oh well. But the potential upside… what if someone else just jumps in to fill in the gap?

As moms, we put the world on our own shoulders. Yes, we are often the ones primarily responsible for running the household and raising our kids. But sometimes the importance of our role gets a bit blown out of proportion, and we begin to think that we are the ones who must do everything. Or, we may decide that sometimes it’s just easier to do it all ourselves rather than wait for someone else to help us.

There are so many problems with trying to do it all. One commonly discussed fact is that moms tend to neglect themselves in the child-rearing process. But there are other reasons why we should step aside and let other people in our households contribute to the family or learn to do things for themselves.

The Husbands

From what I’ve seen, most husbands actually want to help. I tend to be controlling and have a very specific idea about how certain things (like everything!) should be done. So, in raising our kids, I pretty much took over the majority of childcare tasks. The downside to this is that my husband:

a) didn’t know the process for a lot of things

b) felt discouraged about helping with the kids because he “couldn’t do anything right”

c) wouldn’t take initiative to take care of them when I wanted him to

I’ve improved in this area recently, now that the kids are 2 and 4. I was eating lunch the other day after everyone else had finished eating (isn’t that always the way?), and the little man cooked up a particularly stinky diaper. I had to fight the urge to stop mid-eating and go get it handled while everyone else complained about the stench. And you know what? My husband saw that I was still eating and took care of the offending mess. No questions, no complaints, he just got it done.

Another big change I’ve made is that I schedule time for myself. I will book something for myself for an evening when my husband is home. Or I will “book” some time for a task that I need to get done on the weekend, uninterrupted. I do not ask permission to take this time because other than “work time,” the kids are our shared responsibility.

The Kids

The kids need you to stop doing EVERYTHING for them. If you are like me, you will be surprised at what they can manage for themselves.

I used to do everything for my 4-year-old daughter. Now, when I suggest that she do something that I know she is perfectly capable of doing (like getting dressed), she will refuse, saying “I don’t know how.”

My eyes were truly opened to this when I enrolled my son in daycare when he was one, and I stayed with the class the first day to observe. The teachers had all these little one-year-olds doing things for themselves that I had never even tried to do at home. The best one was that they all laid down by themselves on their little mats to nap. We ended up deciding that daycare wasn’t the right option for him, but the message stuck with me.

I now push both kids to do as much as they can for themselves. I make sure to allow for enough time for them to complete each task, knowing that they may not do it right the first time (or the second). Time and extra patience are required!

The Upside

I have seen so many changes in our family since I stopped trying to do everything myself. My husband is jumping in a lot more to assist the kids with whatever they need. He is taking time to play with our children and I am thrilled to see that he is getting closer with them. Best of all, the balance for tending to their needs, whether initiated by the kids or by us, is becoming more even. Some of this is definitely due to their getting older and more independent, but also a direct result of my stepping back from the do-it-all (know-it-all) role.

I can tell that the kids feel a real sense of empowerment. They get the rhythm of our daily lives and get to participate in their own self-care. They are more willing to learn and try to do new things for themselves because of the new attitude we are cultivating.

The best part of all? I get to breathe a little more. Read a book once in a while. Eat a hot meal, and actually taste it.

How Will You Remember Their Childhood?

November 1, 2016 By Sara M. 27 Comments

“I just don’t want to look back on this time as the Dark Ages,” I tell my good friend’s wife. A large group of my college classmates and our kids were visiting a traveling farm last fall.

She sighed, “You probably will.”

This was the hardest thing for me to hear. My son was 8 months old at the time, and my daughter was 2 ¾. I was flying solo for that trip because my husband was away for business. I was a mess. Overwhelmed and exhausted, barely speaking coherent sentences. Trying to manage a willful toddler and a cranky baby.

Out with my classmates, I could barely even remember us all doing our MBAs. Only 6 years had passed but it felt like an eternity. Motherhood had changed everything.

As my son now approaches 2, and my daughter 4, things are so much better. She has improved both socially and emotionally, and she is much more willing to follow instructions and get along. My son is finally crying less, and trying to communicate his needs with words. We’ve settled into a workable routine.

But those words are still echoing through my mind. In 5 years or 10 years, am I still going to be plagued by the difficulty of these early years with my son? Am I going to feel like it was the worst time of my life? Am I going to carry the weight of this deep guilt for falling apart at such a precious time?

I think I easily could. But I don’t want to. I don’t want the film of negativity to color what I remember about my babies’ youngest years. Yes, I will probably always know that it was hard for both my husband and I, an early babyhood gauntlet.

But there has been so much more that I have to work to bring to mind.

I am reminded when I go through pictures of all the fun times we’ve had together. Going to the zoo and feeding the giraffes. Going to the beach and building sand castles. My husband and I taking them to swim classes together.

Or painting with water colors outside when it was warm.

Or running around in the rain and jumping in puddles.

Or the times I bundled them up to go play outside in the snow, and they had so much fun that they barely felt the cold.

What about reading to them every single night? And how I slowed down to read at their pace, patiently answered questions, and engaged in endless side stories.

What about all of the conversations we’ve had? About silly things and serious things and everything in between. And poop, lots of poop.

What about the times I chased them around the kitchen island until we were all dizzy and they were squealing with delight? I can still hear their infectious laughter.

What about the late night and early morning snuggles? When I found their perfect tickle spots or blew raspberries on their sweet, soft bellies.

And the nursing? I am fond of the time I spent nursing my babies. Dutifully waking through the night to feed them, or before the dawn when they began to sleep longer.

So no, I will not call it the Dark Ages. That is not the right way to remember this season. I will not add stack upon stack of guilt to weigh down the beauty of my babies’ childhood. Yes, it was hard. Yes, I have cried out of frustration and exhaustion.

But I’ve been a mom, a good mom. With a big heart, and lots of love. For every correction, there has been double the amount of warmth and praise. For every difficult time, there were double the experiences of exploration and wonder.

I will remind myself of the goodness, the sweetness, and the simplest joys. The times where my true self shone through. I will let the sleepless nights and the tantrums slip away. I will engrave the good memories onto my heart to remember for always.

How will you look back on this period of motherhood? What will you choose?

Dear Mom, Look for Love All Around You

A Young Mom Loses Her Battle With Cancer

Hey Mom, Stop Trying to Do It All!

How Will You Remember Their Childhood?

Categories

Follow the Sanity on Instagram

Categories

Tags

Follow the Sanity on Instagram