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Happy September! My day started around 4 am with a hungry baby and my husband taking our oldest to the hospital. It’s brain surgery day.
I don’t know if anyone has ever been so happy to be on their way to an operating room, but Daniel has been all smiles and full of energy for the last week.
We’ve been anxiously counting down to this day, but I have to be honest… it isn’t going as I’d hoped or planned. Everything’s fine as far as the surgery goes, which is obviously the most important thing, but by 10 am I had already accumulated a number of mom fails.
I finally got our infant daughter back to sleep next to me when my four year old came running into the room. I quietly tried to get him to leave (believe it or not, it’s possible to beg in a whisper), but he didn’t. The baby was startled awake, ended up crying, and I jumped out of bed and started yelling.
I looked at my four year old’s face, and his usually bright and happy eyes were filled with tears. I felt horrible.
I don’t want to be the mom who yells. I don’t want to be the mom who’s overwhelmed and stressed, but lately that’s exactly who I’ve been. I know today’s an unusually stressful day, and I’m trying to give myself grace, but I can’t help but be disappointed in myself.
I quickly pulled my son on to my lap, apologized, and gave him lots of hugs and kisses, but instead of picking up the pieces, I’d rather just avoid those situations all together. I don’t want to break their little spirits, and I don’t want the majority of their memories of me to be of a stressed and frazzled mom.
I’m really just trying to keep this quote in mind today and doing my best inject a little fun into the waiting. Our little kids are too young to really understand what’s going on, but I did run into the family room at one point yelling, “It’s popsicle time!!” They were definitely shocked and confused, but they got on board with the idea pretty quickly.
Needless to say, I was surprised when I opened my email this morning and saw a message all about saying goodbye to survival mode. It’s a new course from Crystal Paine (Money Saving Mom), and I can’t help but feel this was delivered today for a reason. A not-so-subtle lifeline from the universe, perhaps?
I read Say Goodbye to Survival Mode years ago, and loved her Makeover your Mornings course, but I could definitely use more help streamlining my life and operating from a place of peace instead of chaos. I don’t want to feel like I’m running around putting out fires all the time. I want to go through my life intentionally and operating from a place of peace, not chaos. At this point, I’m really not even sure what that would feel like, but it sounds heavenly.
I know things will always pop up, and our son having brain surgery isn’t exactly a typical day, thankfully, but maybe if other areas of my life were taken care of I’d feel more at peace when such big things are out of my hands.
I’m going to focus on the things I can control, start working on creating a routine we can follow, and maybe indulge in a little self care as well. These days my “self-care” is about as fancy as a warm shower and a new coat of nail polish, but I’ll take what I can get. Having a little bit of control over anything (even something as simple as choosing a new color on my nails) comforts me when so many other things are out of my control.
I have a feeling I’ll be hearing little voices yelling “Popsicle time!!” a lot today too.
Update 9/19/2017: Daniel’s doing great! He’ll be having his second surgery in just a few days, and we’re anxious for his stimulators to get hooked up and for his symptoms to (hopefully) drastically improve!
Pamela
I hope everything has gone well with your son’s surgery and I think you definitely need to be a little less hard on yourself. Sometimes life gets in the way of us being the calm person we imagine, and that’s okay. Love that quote – so very true.
Pebble Tedford
I’m so happy to hear things went well for your son…..I’m sure your anxiety has abated also. Prayers 🙂
Emily
Very much so! Thank you <3
Naina@Benefits of SEO Training Course
Amazing Post! I really appreciate you and I hope your son going well soon. God bless You. Thanks for sharing.