Mom is going to camp!

Pack your bags Mom – you’re going to camp!  Don’t forget your slippers, best pyjamas, comfiest of clothes and…. maybe slip a bottle of wine into your bag, because this is not the kind of camp you send your kids to 🙂

Summer is almost over – unfortunately.  But it’s not all bad.  For me, and many of my clients, September is every mom’s January.  It’s time to get your life back!  You know what I mean 😉  We are at the end of 8-10 weeks of kids being at home, under foot.  We have spent the summer entertaining them and their friends, driving them around to various recreational activities, etc, etc.  Hopefully you have had a nice family vacation somewhere in there and maybe you sent your kids off to some kind of camp.  Hockey camp, horseback riding camp, tennis camp, day camp, art camp or perhaps away camp.  You researched what was available, chose the appropriate one, downloaded packing lists or “to bring” lists, organized, dropped off, picked up your own and perhaps others as well.  Busy busy busy.

Here’s my question: What did you do for yourself this summer?  Just you?  Not you and the kids, not you and your spouse… Just YOU… Yeah, that’s what I thought.  That makes you just like every other mother, young or old.  Everyone else comes first and when that’s all done and paid for there is no time and/or money left for you.  It is my passion and desire in life to change that for every hard-working, self-sacrificing, wonderful, loving and accomplished mother out there.  Even those who haven’t had young kids at home for a while.  I bet you still haven’t done much for yourself.  You just might be doing a little less for them… Am I right?

It came to be as a dream goal of mine.  You see; while I was raising 4 incredible boys and giving them, and their father, all of my time, energy and love, I somehow lost my dreams and myself, truth be told.  When my husband and I separated after 19 years of marriage, I had no idea who I was, what I wanted or what my dream was.  For the past 20 years all my dreams tied into his goals and dreams or those of our boys.  Suddenly I found myself asking WHO I was, WHAT I wanted and what happiness was to me.  It was an incredible journey that helped me find true inner joy.  I have always been a happy person of nature, but this was different.  I was in touch with myself.  Decisions became easy because I was in touch with the part of me that told me if it felt right nor not.

There were 6 lessons I learned that got me there:

1. I had to learn to really listen to what mattered to me.  Not everyone else… ME.
2. I had to learn what forgiveness was.  I thought I did, but I had no idea.  I learned to let go.
3. In order to do this I had to learn to love myself.  It was easier than I thought it would be.
4. I let my girlfriends help me get there.
5. I learned how to dream – big!  This is not about money, it’s about purpose, passion and fun.
6. I made a decision to not let fear of failure stop me.

I became a wonder woman 🙂

And now it is your turn.  Do for you what you have always done for your kids.  You send them to camp’s so they can learn more and have fun with their peers.  You sign them up for extra curricular sports teams so they can be active and healthy with other kids and learn about the benefits of being part of a team.  Your parents maybe did this for you, but when is the last time you spent time among other women, being kind to yourself, paying attention only to what you want and need?  When is the last time you took some time for you?  You know I am right.

You don’t say no to your kids, so stop always saying no to yourself!

I am so excited to be able to provide an opportunity for some very special women to do just that.  A place where you can feel safe and loved so you can let yourself dream and just be you.

So pack your bags mom, cause you’re going to camp!

See you there 🙂

Elisabeth xo

The greatest challenges of being a mom

If you read my post yesterday, “5 things I would say to a New or Expectant Mom” you might be able to guess what some of my greatest challenges were as a mother.  Therefore I am going to share not just my challenges, but some that I hear from my clients when we are working together, or from Moms I meet.

But first, what is your greatest challenge as a mom?  What was the one thing you didn’t expect to be so difficult?

Now that my kids are older I look back and have a difficult time remembering some of the things I probably struggled with when they were younger.  So, before we talk about what the challenges are, let me say that this will pass, sooner than you think.  You might even miss it one day.

Lack of time

One of the most common complaints I hear is lack of time.  Time for yourself; time for/with your spouse; time to get things done; time to have a shower.  I do remember this well.  There were days when all I wanted was 3 minutes to go to the bathroom by myself without anyone knocking or barging in with some insignificant, and often minuscule perceived disaster.  This eventually graduated into wanting an hour or so to have an uninterrupted dinner with my husband or friend once in a while. But inevitably I would have to resolve an argument over whose turn it was to play xbox over the phone.  Solution: leave cellphone in purse and only check once per hour.  Trust your babysitter to take care of things.  And bathroom breaks… I told my boys that unless their was blood gushing from their body or an limb was falling off they were NOT to interrupt me under any circumstances…. It worked often enough 🙂

Lack of a sex-life

You might not be surprised to hear that not only moms complain about this… 😉  Yes, husbands complain about this as well – a lot.  This is a tough one.  Moms are exhausted.  They spend their day getting puked on, snotted on and yelled/cried/screamed at.  None of these things go a long way to feeling sexy, desirable or like having anyone else anywhere physically close to them.  Add to that no time to have a shower or any kind of personal care….  And, by the time dinner is over, homework done, driving to activities completed both parents are so exhausted that sleep is the only thing anyone wants.  It’s unfortunate really, because sex is fun and keeps us close with our partner.  My advice: Do it anyway, you will be glad  you did.  You know once you get started you will enjoy it 😉

Dealing with screaming, unreasonable, sick, or whatever (insert issue) children 

This was one of my greatest challenges; the insanity factor as I called it.  I wrote a bit about this in “Crazy Days”.  My days were so unpredictable.  I could have the greatest plan, but then something would happen and everything was thrown off.  This often resulted in that I could not go and visit someone, do what we had planned or that we were going to be an hour late as I was cleaning up some bodily fluid from somewhere, on something….. 😦

Leaving babies or young children with a baby sitter

Many moms find this very difficult.  They even struggle leaving them with their spouse at times.  Alert! I’m going to be scolding a little here: C’mon mom! Get over it!  You need to be able to trust those around you.  Nothing bad is going to happen to your baby if he/she is with their father.  They will do things differently.  The changetable with be messy when you get home and their outfit may be dirty because they forgot to put the bib on…. so what?!  Dad loves this time alone with their children.  They love when they come to him, instead of just going to you.  And you should love it too.  I know it is hard – really I do.  But it is so worth it!  You need to look after yourself and take time.

I could go on and on but will end as I feel I have hit the major ones.  Raising older kids have a whole different set of challenges which I will address another day.  You can read about many of my struggles in my previous posts like Mom Dilemma 1 and Mom Dilemma 2

Ok, now it is your turn to share 🙂  Please do so in comments below

Elisabeth

Mom Dilemma #1

As a mother of 4 (and step mom to 3), I face many dilemma’s, which is why I have named this #1.  These can easily result in the ever powerful “mother’s (parental) guilt” but I will save that for another day…  By dilemmas I mean stuff like making sure I spend equal time with my kids, share feelings of pride, appreciation and joy equally.  Generally my way of handling this has to been to simply always share my feelings with them immediately if possible.  Feelings like “I am so proud of you”, “I love you”, “you are so handsome”, “you are funny” etc, etc are expressed immediately and often.  And much to my joy, my boys still love to hear all those things from me and in fact look for it.  I am very happy that they count on that from me as they all deserve to hear something good every day.

Lately I face another challenge of sorts.  One I am happy and proud to face mind you, but struggle with it sometimes anyway.  One of my youngest is a track athlete – and a very good one.  Do you hear me bragging?  You should, because I am 🙂  Thomas is one of my twins and 17 years old.  He started running for a club 18 months ago and has done very well.  He works so hard at it and is extremely dedicated.  He eats well, goes to bed early and trains hard every day.  And it has paid off.  All my boys have done well at the various sports they chose to participate in but not quite at this level.  I was always very proud of them too.  Never missed their games.  Took them to their practices.  Supported them through it all, good and bad.  When my oldest son went off to University far away, it killed me to not be at his first football game.  You know what he said? “Mom I kept looking up in the stands for you out of habit…”  OMG – I almost cried.  I didn’t make it to all his games, but I did whenever I could and I did for the really big ones.  There is nothing more gratifying as a parent than watching your child do well at his chosen activity – whatever it is.

This week Thomas will be competing at OFSAA which is a provincial/state championship.  He will be running the 800m & 1500m.  We are both nervous…..  He has already met the standard for Youth World 800m which is taking place in the Ukraine this summer.  We will see how he races over the next 2 weeks whether he gets selected to go by Team Canada.  Either way, I am incredibly proud of him obviously.  And so are all his brothers and step sisters/brother.

800m PR 1:54:30

The dilemma as a parent is that when one has more than one child (and I have so many… ) then one is always pulled in different directions.  If he goes to the Worlds in Ukraine which is really far away and really expensive, then that is money not being spent on the others.  That is time not being spent with the others.  But how do I miss something like that?  I have spent the last 23 years raising my boys and making that my first order of business each and every day.  I supported them all in anything they did.  Shared their successes and disappointments through many, many sleepless nights…  Any of you parents know exactly what I mean.  I have for 18 months gone through this journey with Thomas.  Last spring he was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his fibula.  He was devastated!  I felt his pain..  His whole track season was lost.  He could just watch.  I will never forget when he, in tears, said to me; “I did everything right! I went to bed early, I ate well and I trained hard… Why did this happen to me?”  All I could do was hug him and promise him that all that would help him come back stronger than ever. And it did!  And now he is being rewarded for his hard work and might possibly be offered a spot with team Canada for the Youth Worlds.  I want to be there with him and share that with him as well.  I have spent the last 6 weeks listening to times of kids I have never met; been educated on splits and strategies of the 800m and 1500m during races to the point where I am a nervous wreck watching my watch and him during a race.  I am always rewarded with a hug at the finish line – lucky, lucky me! :))))

I want all my boys to know I am just as proud of them whatever it is they are doing, even though I might not always be there to share the moment with them.  I fell blessed that when something good or bad happens I am always their first call.  Will they all understand if I choose to go to this event, or others?  I hope so.  I hope they all know I love them all the same and am equally proud of them all!

If you have something similar to share I would love to hear from you and how you handled it with your family.

Thank you for spending a few minutes here with me and my story.

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