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Retreat

Retreat

A retreat is not only a fancy wellness vacation with a mindful theme like “open your heart”, “find your passion”, “release your inner child”, or whatever you may think of.

A retreat means literally “an act of moving back or withdrawing”.

Just now, I am on my personal, very own, retreat in our bathroom. There were too many tantrums to take in anymore, our parenting as a unity failed fully today and dinner was…let’s better forget it.

As a result I went away from both men, the big one who’s watching football as if nothing happened at all (except of a furious crazy wife, but this seems not of any concern) and the little one who’s watching kids tv (although the furious crazy mom told him that TV today will not be even a question after his behaviour… “but daddy will turn it on for me” – guess he had a point).

So here I am, sitting with my back against the heater – end of April – because I’m tired and freezing.

Scrolling through Instagram won’t help to feel better, neither does any other social media. What helps is to write it all down.

Get it out of my brain, release the tension, cry, let go, embrace this failure of today and accept that days like today are nothing to be ashamed of. Although I indeed was looking left and right earlier on the playground, when my son was the only one shrieking as if I cut off his arm, just because I asked him to stay out of the construction zone (clearly marked as such).

Retreat!

I retreat from being a mom and a wife, for a little while only of course. I retreat to survive this day.

I started into the day with an hour of Yoga, calm and breathing in and out like a champ. All this relaxation and serenity vanished, minute by minute, hour by hour, and left me exhausted on the bathroom floor.

Can you believe that this time spent alone, me and the heater, is a relieve? I am slowly back to the deep breathing, my mind focused and my body relaxes into the heat. A steam bath or sauna would be extraordinary, but for now the bathroom floor is doing a great job.

I still wear my yoga mala and touching the beads clears my mind.

I am fine!

I am myself!

I am allowed to feel all these feelings!

I am not a bad mom nor a bad wife!

I am human!

I am a woman!

I am who I am and all is fine.

My son will surely not learn his lesson today – he was behaving like a little devil and got the TV at the end of the day…

Of course this is not a shining moment in child’s education but it won’t influence his future irrevocable.

My husband won’t stop loving me because we disagreed almost the whole afternoon and evening. He thinks anyway that I’m not normal, so he got a little proof (this is what he thinks today has been, a proof for my insanity) and will not understand that he wasn’t a great support today. But there will be tomorrow morning, when he takes our son to the kindergarten. There will be millions of moments where he is the perfect dad and the perfect husband.

Just one nerve wrecking day will not destroy what we have, the family we are. It won’t harm the love we three have for one another because this love is stronger than anything!

But yes, it surely destroyed my mood and that’s not ok, but it happens. It happens everywhere and nobody is always happy, right?

Just now I am thinking what to do to get some food into my retreat hideaway. I know, as soon as I open the door my son will come to me. I am still mad and I still want my retreat, preferably with the rest of my salad wrap (which I left angry on the dinner table) or some dessert like a ton of ice cream.

A hot shower and cuddling up in front of TV would be a great end of my retreat, unfortunately only in my dreams.

It’s already late and I guess as the mom I have to chase my son to brush his teeth, change into his pjs and bring him to bed, right?

I just can hope that this will happen smoothly without another tantrum.

Cross your fingers please, if he is tired (what I would be after so many anger attacks) I may watch some TV, which means a few minutes, before I doze away fully dressed…

But in the end, all is fine!

Who can relate? Tell me in the comments that I am not the only crazy furious mom and wife, please!!!

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Crazy days of motherhood

Crazy days of motherhood

Crazy days of motherhood

Life ain’t always easy…

After a working day, without the still breastfed toddler at home, I thought I pick him up in the kindergarten and quickly jump into the supermarket to buy a few things.

Bad bad bad idea, that was the worst idea I ever had.

I think there is a breastfeeding brain which is similar to the pregnancy dementia.

What happened?
I’m sitting just now in the back of our car, toddler is drinking half asleep from a breast the size of a giant melon.
I was barely able to focus on what I wanted to buy, forgot the soup but didn’t care because the main goal was to get somehow back to the car without fainting or crying or both because of the milk overproduction.

When I went into the supermarket I thought all is fine until all of a sudden this insanely pain was hitting me and the mean part is, without warning, in waves, just as if it wants to pinch me once in a while to tell me there are more important things than food for mom – food for the toddler is ready.

Whoever said breastfeeding is all snuggling and lovely and precious and nice (which it of course is very often) forgot that it can be painful and raw like this as well.
As soon as he latched I felt the first small relief, after 5 minutes I felt already better and not scared anymore.
If you are alone with your child in a big store and feel so crappy it is scary, isn’t it?
For me thoughts run weird and uncontrolled through my mind. It’s similar to a panick attack which is hitting you out of the blue without upfront warning.
What if I would faint?

Would I fall in a direction, onto my child or just collapse – why did I put him in the carrier – he’s in danger if I faint – is my husband at work answering the phone if someone would call him now – what was that stabbing sensation in my left breast – who’s taking care of my son – or was it from the heart – how should he get up to here when I have the car – calm down, you won’t faint, it’s just too much milk – he will be completely scared if mommy isn’t there – get out here as fast as you can – now it seems to be better – no, the pain comes in waves – do I leave or grab some more milk, better go, right?

This is a thought-circle which I cannot stop at that moment although I know very well that instead of calming down it’s pushing me more into the panicking corner.
Am I the only one who has these thoughts?

We start to relax now, the fear subsides and life comes back, how glad I am today for this car. Sitting here is like a shelter, it’s our little place to securely and safe with locked doors get back to a normal state. I wrote in another post about our messy car but in exactly this moment I’m so thankful that we have everything inside that car – a blanket to cover my little boy who’s really sleepy now, a bottle of water for me to drink something while feeding him, I could even charge my phone if I want to but right now we are fine.

Who needs soup?

I put the sleeping precious milk vampire into his car seat, cover him with his elephant blanket, check my shirt if all is covered again before I leave the backseat and start the engine to drive us home.

Thanks for these days because sometimes I need exactly that to realize how blessed we are and how happy I can be that we have all these possibilities.

What’s one of your crazy motherhood experiences?

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Are there still real blogs or is everyone sponsored?

Are there still real blogs or is everyone sponsored?

Real Blog

I would lie if I wouldn’t think about sponsored blog posts, it’s nice if you get something for your work, isn’t it?

I mean, honestly, I write because I love to write and I publish my writing because?

Because I would love to start discussions, receive some feedback, connect with others BUT this won’t happen. It’s not happening because this tiny blog here is my hobby.

I’m not professional when it comes to setting up a blog because I have no time for it – I’m a mom, a full-time worker, a wife, a woman, I cannot be as professional as someone who works in that area.

But what I am, and this is something I can ensure, I am real.

So what? I am happy and thankful for the few readers I have and my eyes light up whenever I receive a comment on one of my posts because it’s something special.

I may not be perfect but who is?

What I wonder about indeed is this whole influencer story. What means influencer? I try to influence my readers, followers, friends, family, correct?

Do I want to influence or rather be someone who is showing reality?

This feeling that everyone recently is sooooooo excited and soooooooo in love with each and every new item is something I don’t believe.

Many influencers are sitting in their stylish clean designer house, they drive the newest car and have the happiest marriage, their kids are little dressed up mannequins and life is perfect. That’s what they show us.

But is that what we want to see? Really?

Where are the messy moms who barely are able to shower once per day because either a cranky kid is hanging on her leg or she is just too tired in the evening after a day full of work, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, kids and who prefer to spend an hour sitting on the floor building wooden castles instead of blow drying their hair for the perfect look?

Where are the wives with not so perfect marriages, the women who would love to wipe a shiny floor again for a YouTube video but who struggle to walk through the house without stepping on toys.

Where are all of you?

Don’t tell me I’m the only one with a messy life, the only one who dreams of a spa weekend (or better week) but who would miss her kids and her husband too much to leave them behind?

I think I knocked myself latest with this post out of the influencer circle unless there is someone out there who wants an authentic opinion.

I like that yogurt because I really like it or I don’t like the yogurt because it sucks. I can explain both scenarios, don’t worry, but I would not tell you it’s so delicious that I recommend it to everyone out there. Maybe you want a messy mom, then this here is my application.

A blog with a handful of real readers, a twitter account that is linked to everything I post but where I have no idea if someone indeed read something there, an Instagram account which I absolutely love and which has quite a decent number of followers but the majority of them is either sleeping 24/7 or lost their phones as interaction is rarely, ah, and my Facebook account, I love facebook but also there the interaction mainly takes place in secret mommy groups instead of public on my profile.

I can recommend everything I like and I indeed do and maybe even be able to influence, but I cannot sell a fridge to a penguin and I don’t want to do that either.

Are you real or are you sponsored?

#thisisNOTasponsoredpost 😉

 

 

 

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A day in the life of a working mum…

 

A day in the life of a working mum…without childcare

toddler at home

Let me show you a typical working day with a toddler at home.

8.00 am – 9.30 am – I actually work

9.30 am – the toddler wakes up

Washing him and changing diapers, breastfeeding, carrying him, sitting and rocking , playing, emptying the dishwasher, starting the washing machine, feed him, playing, answering the phone, breastfeed again, dressing him, reading mails in between, answering IMs from colleagues…

…and all of a sudden it’s 11.45 am.

He yawns.

So off to the bed, breastfeeding until he drifts off into sleep.

12.01 pm conference call

12.25 pm – the toddler (who found out recently how to leave the family bed on his own) taps into the room (seriously, only half an hour where I hoped for at least triple that time to get work done).

Breastfeeding number 4 – he still doesn’t want to eat, I tried.

I shift clothes from the washing machine into the dryer, make soap bubbles to entertain my son and try to answer some emails in between.

12.45 pm – I feel like a cow as he’s sitting on my lap latched again – number 5 for today and no end in sight. I truly love it but when you work you wish that he just eats his bread, yogurt, fruit, instead of occupying me every minute of the day (although he has the right for sure).

1.00 pm – my husband is home so that I can finally work properly at least for a while.

1.30 pm – I cooked pasta for my son with the end result that he ate exactly two while I ate the salad from yesterday evening.

It’s now 2.00 pm – I have a conference call soon that needs preparation (at 3.30 pm) and my lovely toddler sits on the floor beside me, makes noises with a paper box and yawns.

At least I can answer emails again – the sound would have disturbed me a year ago but hey, you’re getting used to focus even when it’s completely noisy around you.

2:30 pm – he ate a few bites of bread and the last was spit well chewed on the floor, and not on the wooden part, no, on the carpet so that I need to clean it with more efforts than on the wooden floor. Still no sign of being ready to sleep, I know after 14 months when it makes sense to lay down with him and when not. In his current mood we would spend an hour in the bed and he wouldn’t sleep so I let him play with the hope that he is soon really tired.

3.00 pm – less than 30 min left until my conference call and my toddler isn’t tired at all – the only option will be that he stays with his dad.

3:29 pm and he’s ‘talking’ loudly with his dad in the bedroom – I have a toddler resistant to sleep on some days. He will sleep, exactly then when we would like to go outside and do some grocery shopping.

Just happy that it’s Friday and this work week is almost over.

4.00 pm – he seems to sleep as I don’t hear anything but I can’t check as I need to jump from one conference call into the next, fortunately the last for today.

For this call I only need to listen so I can start to think about what to cook for dinner today and what we need to buy before shops are closing.

5.30 pm – I’m stuck in that call longer than expected and meanwhile all are awake again so I’m sitting on my desk with a muted headset, my son is running around and wondering what mommy is doing, breastfeeding number 6 for today (I’m not sure if I missed some already as it’s so normal these days) and I’m annoyed because I would give everything to just throw the laptop and enjoy the time with my family. But this job is paying lots what we love in our life and quitting is not an option, besides it is a great job at many times but just now I wish I would be a millionaire not caring for such things as conference calls.

Am I the only one or are other working moms also feel guilty not to be there 100% for their children. I’m apologizing so often to him although he won’t understand a word I’m saying that I still need to do this or that before we can play.

It’ll be past 6.00 pm when I finally am off work and then the private stress will start – what do we really need today, is there something that can’t wait until tomorrow? Cooking dinner is hanging like the Damocles sword above me because I long to have a bit time for NOTHING. No thinking, no you need to, you have to, have you already or when will you – just a quiet hour to recharge but that won’t happen until my son sleeps which recently is rarely before midnight.

I send this post now, unfinished, as the rest of the day until I will fall into my bed (or better until I try to go to my side of the bed without waking him up) I won’t find the time anymore. If I don’t send it now it may sit in my drafts for the next weeks.

That’s motherhood, a day of a working mom without childcare, a crazy day with a toddler, that’s my life and even if it is often beyond exhausting I would NEVER EVER change it back.

Stay strong – we are strong!

And stay away of the thought to be perfect, nobody needs to be perfect! My messy hair will be in a bun in 5 minutes to leave the house and if you look around then you will see many imperfections, so no worries. Most important now is a happy toddler and that’s why I’m off into the weekend now. Bye