Where did I lose my “me” time? | Photography by Brea

Sep 7, 2015 8:54 pm
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When I was 7 or 8 years old… I had a “thinking tree” (as I called it) just down the alley that ran beside my house.  It had a thick branch just low enough that I could pull myself up to sit on it, and leaves that sagged down almost to ground level to create a natural little tent inside which no one could see me.

I loved that tree.  It was my “space” where I went simply because I enjoyed alone time… and it also served as a “safe zone” I could retreat to when I felt emotionally overloaded or sad.

Lately I’ve been noticing that my daughter has a WHOLE LOT of me coming out in her personality… specifically in the way that she also finds ways to make time to be by herself.  Whether it’s taking her stuffed animals into her cardboard “house” (made of the shipping remnants of our patio furniture we got this summer), and closing the door for a half hour while she plays make-believe with them…. Or how she’ll be playing with a group of neighborhood friends and then find a way to make space for herself to dance or to sing “Frozen” songs away from the crowd.

And watching her little “keep to herself” personality has brought me back to the peacefulness that I used to feel doing the same thing.   While I LOVED my time with my friends and spent the majority of my time with them…  I equally loved those quiet times just hanging out by myself.   Whether it was in my room journaling/writing poems… or just hanging out on that low-hanging branch.

But somewhere along the way… that little girl stopped going to that thinking tree.  She stopped giving herself a time and a space to retreat to when her emotions were on overload, or just to be alone with her thoughts.   And today… if I DO decide to spend that time alone…  it’s uncomfortable, can be filled with guilt that I should be doing something “productive” or with my family… and simply just not as peaceful as I remembered it being on that branch.

So WHY did that little girl lose that awesome recognition that “me” time is so important…so healthy … and so necessary to stay level-headed in an otherwise uneven world?

Well…

I know I lost it a little bit in adolescence when I got made fun of for being “too deep” and started trying to hide that side of myself.

I know I lost it a little bit in my twenties when I spent my time defining myself based on how many friends I had around me.

I know I lost it a little bit when I entered the corporate world and got caught up in the belief that time spent on emails/meetings/deadlines were more important than time spent acknowledging what my own needs were.

I know I lost it a little bit when I had kids and listened to the societal voices that labeled Moms who openly admit that they want “me time” as selfish.

But looking back… I realize that I didn’t lose it. I gave it away, didn’t I?  I gave it away to the chaos and to all of those other voices.  I spent more time listening to that noise, and NOT listening to the person that I used to listen to when I sat on that thinking tree branch 25 years ago.

There are times that I watch my daughter retreat by herself and worry for her…  that she might be an outcast at school when she’s off in the corner of the playground by herself while all of her classmates are playing kickball.  But you know what? I hope she doesn’t listen to me – or anyone who calls her out for it, for that matter –  and instead…. that she never stops listening to that smart little voice of hers that tells her how awesome it is… and always will be… to give herself some “me time.”

And I hope she’ll let me borrow her thinking tree … whenever I decide to start listening again to the voice that really matters.

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One High Five Between Two 3-Year-Old Strangers… Two Moms with Tails Between Their Legs | The Mom Blog

Aug 5, 2015 12:44 pm
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“Look, Mom … Here comes my friend.”

My three year old’s voice couldn’t have been more excited as we played in an otherwise empty park on a “disconnect from life” trip back to my hometown last month.

I looked around expecting to see one of my friends who happened to show up at the park with their little one that my daughter may have recognized.

Instead – I saw a Mom and her daughter walking down the street towards us.  The Mom unfamiliar – her daughter looking to be about my daughter’s age.

The minute the duo joined the playground area – the girls met up above the tandem slide… asked each other their names…  slid down their side of the slide… high-fived … and headed off giggling to explore another part of the jungle gym.  As if they’d been friends for months.

Us Moms looked at each other from our keep-a-distance spots across the play area and laughed a bit at the instant friendship that was born between the two.  And we semi-awkwardly came together with our tails between our legs to introduce ourselves to one another and asked a couple of predictable “Mom” questions.  And as our girls continued to play with each other, forcing the two of us to stay in the same general area… more conversation sparked up, and we learned more about each other, we shared stories about raising three-year-old girls and talked about our connection to the town we were in.  And by the end of the almost 30-minute unplanned playdate, we had all made a connection with each other – the girls hugged goodbye and us Moms gave a “nice-to-meet-you” wave.

On our short drive back to my parents’ house I was thinking about that interaction that went down.  And how cool it was that my daughter immediately referred to that little girl as her friend. How quickly they created a friendship. How “normal” it was for them to ask each other’s names. How they bonded on their commonality of two little girls being the same age and just wanting to have fun.  And how THEIR willingness to not remain strangers during that 30-minute timeframe caused their Moms to not remain strangers either.

And what stood out even more was this:   I wondered… if those girls hadn’t made the effort to connect… would that Mom and I have connected instead?  Or would we have just gone about our business with the polite smile – using the “chasing our kids” excuse to avoid (*gasp*) conversation with someone we didn’t know….maybe speaking occasionally to each other only to apologize when our daughter jumped in front of the other daughter to go down the slide.   Or would we – as adults – have reached out to each other to try to form a friendship – even if brief – solely based on the realization of our basic commonality as Moms?

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if we would have.   Because I can think of several times I’ve been at the park with other Moms and neither of us introduced ourselves.  Or struck up a conversation.  Or even said goodbye to each other — let along HUG each other like those two girls did when it was time to leave.

Why do we do that?  Why do we go to the library, and to the playground, and to the play area at the mall, or in the watching area of dance class … where there are tons of Moms just like us around who are probably craving the same adult interaction we are … and not create some sort of connection out of it?  Why don’t we introduce ourselves? Are we THAT cool that we don’t need to make a new friend? Are we THAT content to do our own thing that we miss an opportunity to make a connection with someone – even if it’s just for the 15 minutes that we’re there?  Is sitting on a park bench and checking what our sort-of-Facebook-friend is doing THAT MUCH more meaningful than creating a real connection with a person that’s right in front of us?  It must be.  Because we usually choose those other things, don’t’ we?

You all know the quote “While we try to teach our kids all about life, our kids teach us what life is all about.”  And isn’t it true in this scenario.  Didn’t those two little girls teach their Moms something about life… and the simple joys of having human interaction with people. No matter how quick.  No matter whether we’ll see them again.  No matter where they come from.  

At what point along the way have we lost that?  HOW do our kids know more about what’s important in life than we do?

I’m not sure.

But they do, you guys.  

And that’s embarrassing.

But we can make up for it by making sure that they never lose that uninhibited willingness to connect with a stranger… by being willing to connect with a stranger.  By getting off our phones, out of our heads and up from the playground’s bench … and getting into life’s game (one at which our kids are currently winning.)

One High Five Between Two 3-Year-Old Strangers… Two Moms with Tails Between Their Legs | The Mom Blog

Aug 5, 2015 12:28 pm
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“Look, Mom … Here comes my friend.”

My three year old’s voice couldn’t have been more excited as we played in an otherwise empty park on a “disconnect from life” trip back to my small-town hometown last month to spend a few lazy days with my parents.

I looked around expecting to see one of my friends who happened to show up at the park with their little one that my daughter may have recognized.

Instead – I saw a Mom and her daughter walking down the street towards us.  The Mom unfamiliar – her daughter looking to be about my daughter’s age.

The minute the duo joined the playground area – the girls met up above the tandem slide, asked each other their names, slid down their side of the slide, high-fived and headed off giggling to explore another part of the jungle gym.  As if they’d been friends for months.

Us Moms looked at each other from our keep-a-distance spots across the play area and laughed a bit at the instant friendship that was born between the two.  And we semi-awkwardly came together with our tails between our legs to introduce ourselves to one another and asked a couple of predictable “Mom” questions.  And as our girls continued to play with each other, forcing the two of us to stay in the same general area… more conversation sparked up, and we learned more about each other, we shared stories about raising three-year-old girls and talked about our connection to the town we were in.  And by the end of the almost 30-minute unplanned playdate, we had all made a connection with each other – the girls hugged goodbye and us Moms gave a “nice-to-meet-you” wave.

On our short drive back to my parents’ house I was thinking about that interaction that went down.  And how cool it was that my daughter immediately referred to that little girl as her friend. How quickly they created a friendship. How “normal” it was for them to ask each other’s names. How they bonded on their commonality of two little girls being the same age and just wanting to have fun.  And how THEIR willingness to not remain strangers during that 30-minute timeframe caused their Moms to not remain strangers either.
And what stood out even more was this:   I wondered… if those girls hadn’t made the effort to connect… would that Mom and I have connected instead?  Or would we have just gone about our business with the polite smile – using the “chasing our kids” excuse to avoid (*gasp*) conversation with someone we didn’t know….maybe speaking occasionally to each other only to apologize when our daughter jumped in front of the other daughter to go down the slide.   Or would we – as adults – have reached out to each other to try to form a friendship – even if brief – solely based on the realization of our basic commonality as Moms?
Unfortunately, I’m not sure if we would have.   Because I can think of several times I’ve been at the park with other Moms and neither of us introduced ourselves.  Or struck up a conversation.  Or even said goodbye to each other — let along HUG each other like those two girls did when it was time to leave.
Why do we do that?  Why do we go to the library, and to the playground, and to the play area at the mall, or in the watching area of dance class – where there are tons of Moms just like us around probably craving some adult interaction – and not create some sort of connection out of it out of it?  Why don’t we introduce ourselves? Are we THAT cool that we don’t need to make a new friend? Are we THAT content to do our own thing that we miss an opportunity to make a connection with someone – even if it’s just for the 15 minutes that we’re there?  Is sitting on a park bench and checking what our sort-of-Facebook-friend is doing THAT MUCH more meaningful than creating a real connection with a person that’s right in front of us?  It must be.  Because we usually choose those other things, don’t’ we?
You all know the quote “While we try to teach our kids all about life, our kids teach us what life is all about.”  And isn’t it true in this scenario.  Didn’t those two little girls teach their Moms something about life… and the simple joys of having human interaction with people. No matter how quick.  No matter whether we’ll see them again.  No matter where they come from.   At what point along the way have we missed that?  HOW do our kids know more about what’s important in life than we do?
I’m not sure.
But they do.  And that’s embarrassing, guys.
But we can make up for it by making sure that they never lose that uninhibited willingness to connect with a stranger… by being willing to connect with a stranger.  By getting off our phones, out of our heads and up from the playground’s bench … and getting into life’s game (one at which our kids are currently winning.)

Bringing the “Vacation You” Home with You | Photography by Brea | The Mom Blog

Jul 6, 2015 5:07 pm
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I’m sitting here on a balcony twelve floors up … watching my husband and my 3-year-old daughter play in the sand down by the waves while my little dude takes an early morning nap inside. (You know – to make up for the two hours he was wide awake last night.)

Outside of the tranquil sound of the waves and the occasional joyful squeal of a child running away from a wave in the distance… It’s really, really (beautifully) quiet up here on this balcony … an opportunity for me to sit still for a second with nowhere to be and nothing on the to-do list except take in the adorable scene happening below me.  Because even though there are tons of other beach-goer distractions and sounds around her, I have blinders toward them … it’s like the sun is shining right down on that wet pony tail while she follows her daddy around with tools for him to build her a princess sandcastle, taking a break every so often to do a little twirl in her own little world. She has looked so big to me lately, I love seeing her as a little freckle of a pink bathing suit in the midst of the giant ocean and miles of sand landscape. This is completely one of those “life is really awesome” moments.

Vacation for me has always been an opportunity to put a weed wacker to the daily chaos of home – and to just “be” for a little bit. And enjoy uninterrupted time with my family.

… To wake up at 6am with my no-concept-of-time son and play on an almost vacant beach… Chasing the seagulls, getting our shorts splashed in the waves and then having him lay on my shoulder when he starts to feel the side effects of his extra-early wake-up time.

… To give my daughter my undivided attention in the pool as she jumps off the shallow-end steps for the 64th time in her oversized goggles and is just as excited on the 65th.

… To give my husband the “you go ahead honey – stay down here and enjoy the sun and the pool with her and I’ll go in the room for the baby’s nap”…  when the truth is I really enjoy the time sitting up here on this balcony without a responsibility to be had.

It’s about disconnecting with reality and all of its distractions, and reconnecting with everything that matters.

Like that little tanned-leg flower-waisted bathing suit wearer in the sand down below me.  And the man who makes her (and my) world so safe, so whole and so much fun. And the little boy sleeping silently in the monitor beside me brewing up the energy to be a non stop machine for the rest of the day.  And that soon-to-be addition to our family who grows so innocently inside of my belly.  And myself… reconnecting with who I authentically am and giving myself permission to have fun, to relax and to recharge.

THAT is everything that matters.  THIS… Is life.

But in the midst of this blissful state… I let the thought of the first day we walk in the house from vacation creep in.  That house that is a mess from the chaos of packing a week before. The computer that awaits me with emails and editing.   The lawn that will need mowed and the empty fridge that will require a grocery run.  The stove that will stare at me and challenge me to come up with a meal every night and actually find time to cook it in the midst of a work-filled and kid-chasing day.

And in an instant…  that calm, happy, alive-ness washes right back out into that ocean.  My shoulders droop and my stomach gets a knot.  To think about going home to that cycle of monotony and distractions and stresses… ugh.  Why can’t I feel the way I feel right now on this balcony all of the time?

And I stopped myself for a second.

And I really thought about that.

Why CAN’T I have this vacation-bliss feeling all of the time?  What’s my excuse? What’s holding me back?

The answer is… I am

I let the distraction weeds grow and overcome me. I CHOOSE to see the mess in the house instead of the people that made it.  I choose to see the computer instead of the privilege to have an office in my home. I choose to focus on the dinner preparation instead of the conversation we get to have as a family while eating it.  I choose to make cleaning a priority when I know it’s not. I choose chaos over calmness.

And that ocean of distractions will ALWAYS be there. And it is MY CHOICE whether or not to focus on it. To let it overcome me, or to let the light shine through instead onto those little freckle of things that are truly important in the midst of it.

So today I vow to not let the “Vacation Brea” disappear with the tide the minute our car turns back north.  Nope… she’s coming with me.  With all of her calmness. Her happiness. Her “so myself”-ness. And her freakin-aliveness.

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A Positive Reflection| The Mom Blog | Photography by Brea

May 18, 2015 11:19 am
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A couple of months ago, we decided to enroll my 3-year-old daughter into a “princess ballet” class.  She had been spending all of her hours dressing up in princess costumes, dancing with dainty princess arms, asking for me to put on princess music… so, it was a natural next step.

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We had just finished up 6 months of a “mom-and-me” gymnastics class that we really loved.  For her, it was a play land of new fun things to try… all with the comfort of Mom being there while she did it.  It was something special “we” did together in a year where we were both adjusting to her little brother being in our lives.

Like her, I loved that it was something set aside for “just us.”  And with gymnastics being her first real “organized” activity – I was kind of excited about seeing how she would follow instructions and interact with her classmates.  And let’s be honest, I also liked that if she didn’t follow instructions or went rogue from an activity that I could “parent” right away.

But ballet?  It was a 45-minute class once a week, but it felt like a whole new world for me.  I would be sitting in the watching area.  Watching (hoping, praying) that she was going to “behave” without me being out there.   As a work-at-home Mom, I am with my kids ALL of the time and have been able to be there for all of the milestones and experiences to praise them for doing something great, and teach them when a lesson presented itself.  And I never realized how uncomfortable it would feel for me to “lose” that control … for her to be out there to learn from someone else … to make mistakes … to take instructions from someone else.

And if that wasn’t enough… all of that was happening with a room full of other princess ballet parents seeing how she was doing that.   It felt like my parenting skills were put on a stage for everyone to see and judge.

And isn’t. that. so. SAD.

Isn’t that sad … that I made princess ballet about ME.

It was “my” test to see how well “I”  had parented her.  Every time she listened or didn’t listen, every time she talked kindly or didn’t talk kindly (like the time she told the teacher to “not touch her” when she went to reach for her hand), every time she went off on her own or played with other kids… I made that about me.   I was not only relentlessly judging myself… I was constantly doing the old “glance around the room” to see what the other Moms were thinking when my daughter didn’t follow directions.  It was about me and my fear of what she was going to do “wrong” and how that was going to be a reflection of me and what other people were going to think about that.

And while I stressed out about all of that stuff … I had forgotten about what this experience was for HER.

It was HER first time to go out there without me.  HER chance to try something new and make mistakes and have successes. HER experience of meeting new friends.  HER processing and learning how to follow along with a group.   HER chance to express her creativity and her personality.  HER chance to do something that she really enjoyed. HER chance to be independent.

All of those amazing things…. while I sat there and worried about “me.”

And while that’s really hard for me to think about and even admit … I also am grateful for the experience.  Because in a few short months we’ll be sending this princess ballerina off to preschool.  Dropping her off. No watching area.  Just the hoping and praying that you’ve done enough in these first almost-four years to have her be ready for it.   And while that will inevitably be a part of the experience for me – I want it to be more about the experience for her.  And I vow so HARD to make sure I don’t miss that.

Because while I don’t completely forget the fact that I have an influence on her – and a responsibility as a parent to help prepare her to navigate this world with character, love and a sense of right and wrong… I have a bigger responsibility to know when to step back and allow the focus to be more about what the experience is for HER.  To put aside all of the social parenting pressures, to nix the pity parties for myself when she isn’t perfect all of the time …  And worry more about what these new stages in life are about for HER, and how I can help her learn, grow, enjoy, express, fall down, get up and EXPERIENCE.

Because while I always think that our kids are a reflection of us and the example we set for them – it’s ultimately THEIR reflection they see in the mirror at the end of the day.  And isn’t it more of our responsibility to help foster whoever that reflection authentically is … than it is to make sure that reflection positively reflects us?

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