How do you find me-time as a mother?

Finding me-time as a mother is hard when you have kids at home, a ton of housework and no set lunch break. But, it's not impossible...

I was chatting to a stay-at-home mom friend the other day and she was saying how relentless her days were and how sometimes it felt a bit meaningless.

Did I gasp and instantly gab on about how meaningful I find motherhood?

Heck no, I just nodded because I get it.

Yes, motherhood is beautiful and it’s such important work, but it’s also hard, exhausting and frustrating. When you have little kids, there are days when you feel like an overlooked personal servant. The only way I can think to counter that is to carve out time for yourself and do something that feels meaningful to you.

So we started talking about how we find “me-time” as stay-at-home moms and what that even looks like, especially during a pandemic.

Backseat bird watching

We were driving in the car one weekend last year when my then almost-four-year-old was unusually quiet. He was deep in thought about something, staring out the car window. 

“The birds don’t have to wear masks?” my son suddenly asked. He’d been watching the birds flying above, landing on walls and street lights as masked people walked by along the pavements.  

“No, they don’t,” I said. 

“They’re lucky,” he said. 

Shoo, this pandemic has flipped our world upside down. I typed this out months ago and saved it so that I wouldn't forget how a virus could make us question everything. 

Photo by Viktor Keri on Unsplash

P.S. You might enjoy reading The small things are the big things. 

Finding a rhythm for 2021

I quit making resolutions probably about the same time I had a baby. Life becomes rather unpredictable when you have kids and I was done with setting lofty goals that made me feel inadequate rather than empowered.

Over the last few years, I sometimes come up with a word or a phrase for the year that relates to some areas of my life I would like to improve. Last year, my phrase for the year was ‘lighten up.’ It encompassed the ideals of living more joyfully by streamlining mundane tasks, spending more time investing in friendships, having more fun and yes, rather predictably, losing a little weight. And then COVID-19 hit us.  

It was hard to lighten up in 2020 and, since I still feel like I’m learning how to do this, I didn’t want to come up with a phrase or word for the year. But it came to me regardless – rhythm.

Peanut butter oat cookies with shredded carrot - Lockdown baking

Here is my favourite peanut butter cookie recipe. It includes shredded carrots and somehow my four-year-old loves them. 

I'm saving the recipe here it so that, should I have a dithery day, I can find it here. Reader, you might like it too. Who knows, maybe this blog will still be here, floating around on the Interwebs when I'm long gone and my son wants to bake his mom's peanut butter cookies for his loved ones. Maybe he'll make them even better. 

This peanut butter cookie is my little family's favourite. The inspiration came from another Monique, of the famed Ambitious Kitchen blog, and her delicious peanut butter cookie recipe. I made lots of changes, but these are the most important ones: 

• There's 1/2 cup less peanut butter (it's cheaper and the cookies contain less fat that way)
• The addition of over 1 cup more oats (I get more cookies out of a batch). 
• The addition of shredded carrot - It adds moisture and ups the healthy nutritional and fibre content (plus it's a great way to sneak veg into your family's diet). 
• There's no need for baking powder (I found you don't really need it for this chewy cookie). 

Ingredients 

• 2 - 2,5 cups of oats 
• 1- 2 grated carrot 
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter 
• 2/3 cups of sugar (I use white sugar but brown is good too) 
• 2 large eggs 
• Optional: a teaspoon of vanilla essence 

Mix all the ingredients together (by hand or in a processor) and bake at 180C for 10 - 12 minutes. Enjoy! 

P.S. You might like to try Wheat-free oat chocolate muffins

Stepping off the path

I wanted to write about how I've been finding calm in the midst of this covid pandemic and how it's lead me to embrace my anxiety as a superpower of sorts, but who am I telling? I feel like Shirley Valentine talking to a wall (great movie that), so I'll tell my son, in case he ever reads this.

I wrote about my anxiety during this weird and wonderful time on Instagram. Right now, as a four-year-old, you think Instagram is where mommy goes on her phone to check the weather. 

In case it's no longer, or I delete my account on a whim (I'm like that), here's what I wrote back on 10 October 2020... 

Tiny treasures 

These flowers are so small that, had we not stepped off the path, I would never have spotted them in the grass.

Sometimes, stepping off the path is the best thing, even if you're forced to.

It's what I'm learning during this pandemic - to notice beauty and make the small things the big things. I listened to a talk about happiness that reminded me of what God told me back in early March - focus on the big things. As a key to happiness, Dr Rick Hanson suggested creating 'beneficial experiences' and then making the experiences big, letting them resonate.

That made it click for me, what God was saying all along - the small things are the big things. It's all the good small things that make us happy, but they need to be magnified.

I'm trying because I'm not naturally a happy, easy-going person. I am anxious, analytical, serious, easily overwhelmed by too much sensory information and an introvert - INFJ/upholder. So I read articles on how to be a more fun parent and stop shouting (I'm a shouter), I take too many photos of flowers, landscapes and my kid climbing trees, I plant weeds in my garden because I think they're pretty and why the heck not, and I paint. It's what's keeping me going.

I'm sharing this because it's World Mental Health Day and I want to say 'Hey, it's okay if you're struggling - I'm struggling too.' I think we're all struggling. It's been a heck of a year so far, so do what you need to do. Look after yourself. Find a hobby that you can get lost in, get out into nature, bake a cake, wear your fav outfit (even if you're staying in), put on some lippy, pray, read, watch a good movie, garden, have a roll in the hay and remember that life is still beautiful.

P. S. Check out how small these little orchids are in comparison to my hand.

Good night, I love you.

P.S. You might enjoy reading Are we playing for an audience?