.deep breaths.

This was me yesterday, face hovering over the diffuser, soaking in the goodness of every drop of Valor essential oil blend.  I needed it.  The kids are off for the week for school vacation, and I needed a little dose of bravery to get through the rough spots of our day.  We have been so busy, running back and forth to softball camp and going in and out of the city a couple of times.  There have been playdates and sleepovers and other commitments all jammed in to a few days.  Our schedules are off...we've been staying up late.  Lateness makes for very irritable children...children who wish out loud that they had another mom.  Truth be told, everyone's been a little grumpy.  Real talk...sometimes I need to lock myself in the bathroom and turn to the powers of essential oils to get me through.

Lately, I find that even the kids have been getting into the oils.  Ever since I hung them in an printer's box on our bathroom wall, the kids turn to them for injuries and ailments.  I overheard Gray explaining the benefits of oils to her eleven year old friend the other day.  She let her pick some out to put in the diffuser, and then they disappeared with it into Gray's room.  It was a proud mama moment.   Lulu goes off to school every day with various combos of oils on...I let her pick and choose her own (probably much to her teachers' dismay). Even Johnny is subjected to a random spritz of oils now and then.  It's our go-to for destressing...the little kids get a spray of oils before bed every night, and we call it "sleepy spray".  Even Rusty the dog trots around smelling like patchouli.

Pinterest is a great place for info/recipes using essential oils.  I could kill a couple of hours surfing around and pinning different ideas.  There are also a whole bunch of incredible blogs focused on the healing powers of essential oils.  I'm part of a few incredible Facebook groups that inspire me and show me how powerful oils can be.

Do you use them in your daily life?  What are you favorite ways to incorporate them into your day?

(If you don't have a diffuser, I highly suggest you invest in one!  It's one of the best things I bought for our family this year.  If you have questions about where to get one, message me directly and I will steer you in the right direction!)

alone mom

The flip-side of being "fun mom" is "alone mom".  Both are important to me, and one necessitates the other.  I've always been one that needs lots of alone time (or away-from-the-kids, but with other adults time).  Lots of me time, away from the kids and doing my own thing.  I kind of have an obsession with filling my own well, in order to be a better mom.  This week has been one of those weeks where, thanks to Johnny's schedule, I've gotten to sneak out quite a bit.

A couple of nights ago, I picked up my Boo and we went out for the best Indian food my face has ever tasted.  Like for real, we demolished the food and I was kind of licking the plate.  No lie.  No shame.  And then we went to a UU church for a gathering called "Earth Vespers" and we sat around in the near dark listening to poems, practically begging the spirits to send us Spring, fast please.  It was very earthy crunchy and I ate that shit up, too.  As we were calling on spirit animals, I sat there thinking to myself, "Aaaah, this is the life.  Now I can go home and take care of my little animals."  I felt myself filling up.  Like a battery recharge.

I also got to hang with lots of friends this week, and made a quilt, and some prayer flags, and then hosted my book group.  A whole plate full of stuff that fills me up.  And as I sit here now, I am sitting in a coffee shop a couple of towns over that I just found...and I couldn't be happier.  Give me my ginormous headphones, an iced decaf Americano, and my little corner of the coffee shop, and I am a happy mama.

The kids will be off for school vacation this coming week.  Which is awesome, really.  I am seriously looking forward to it.  Right now, they are with my mom for an overnight, and I am going to soak up every minute of alone time, looking at it as a big mama-battery recharge before the long week ahead.  I am going on a real date with my husband tonight!  I'm wearing a skirt and everything.  When I go pick them up tomorrow, I will be ready for the week ahead, ready to spearhead all our adventures!  (fingers crossed)  And if that fails, you can find me in my bed, under the covers, with my headphones on!

y

fun mom

Somewhere along the line, between the move from MA to NH a couple of years back, and the twin pregnancy, I lost a little bit of my fun.  I didn't know it was happening...I just kind of slowed down and started taking a spectator role when the kids were playing.  They were older, and they needed me less.  And frankly, I was tired. I was tired from being a grownup.  I found myself reserving my energy for the adultish stuff I had to do----like cook dinner, do the laundry, and pick up after five people and a dog.  Oh yeah, and growing some human beings.  I pretty much stopped having fun and switched gears to serious business mode.

Like I said, I didn't even realize this was happening.  Until last week.  Maybe it's because I have more energy, or maybe something subconsciously just clicked, but I realized that I have the need and desire to be silly.  To have fun.  To play with my kids.  To tickle the crap out of them in my bed until we are all drenched in tears.  Maybe I realized they are all growing up, and these moments are so fleeting.  And I want to make the most of them all.

It started small.  We went to the museum.  I played with them.  We went out and bought sleds and then we came home and I went sledding with them instead of watching from the window.  They were all shocked.  Gray called out "Mom, you are so FUN!  What's happening?".  Later that week, on Valentine's Day, while we were waiting for John to come home from work, we all drew big huge red hearts on each other's butts and then mooned him when we walked in.  We've been playing games at night instead of watching TV.  I sit myself on the floor and play Lego's and blocks and Barbies.  We are reading out loud more.  We built a fort under the dining room table.  Little things, but big things to them.

For the first time in a while, I'm actually looking forward to school vacation on Friday.  I'm looking forward to just being with the kids, and being myself.  I feel like the old me is emerging, and I love it.

sanctuary?...

I find that as the kids get older, my need to find sanctuary gets greater and greater.  Their energies rub off on me, and if they are fighting or feeling especially cranky, I want to crawl out of my skin.  And as much as I love our house, we joke that it's the smallest house in our town filled with mansions.  When we first moved in after moving from our 900 square foot first house, it really did feel like a mansion to us, but now, with three growing kids (one who can be a very moody tween), it can feel really, really small.  We are lucky to have every square inch...but we do fill them all up, especially when we are cooped up because of these freezing temps outside.

John's been travelling on the weekends lately, and sometimes it feels like a physical challenge just getting through the two days without him.  This past weekend was particularly difficult because the kids were just...kids.  I felt like nothing was enough...no amount of playdates, or special treats, or trips to the museum and lunch dates was enough.  At the tail end of it all, I retreated into my sanctuary...my bedroom...and shut the door.  I closed the curtains and covered myself with my blankets and shut the door.  I let them fight downstairs.  I didn't yell down to tell them to stop.  I didn't tell the dog to stop barking.  I just let my body rest.  I took deep breaths.  I rubbed my temples. I shut out the frenetic energy.  I took two (really, almost three) hours to myself.  I let them discipline and manage themselves (I have the luxury of doing this because they are older...I trust they won't hurt themselves).  The best part of it all was that when I reemerged, it was like I hit the reset button.  The kids treated me better.  They had stopped fighting.  We had an awesome night.  It was kind of magic.

It was perfect permission to do that more often.

For Christmas, right before I gave birth, John brough home a big comfy chaise lounge for my sanctuary.  We call it the "kitty kat lounge".  The day after he brought it home, I decided to relax on it for a little bit before the Christmas Eve festivities began.  I sprawled out on it for the first time, read a couple of pages on my kindle, and immediately began hemmoraging.  So how's that for sanctuary?  I had to rush off the kitty kat lounge right to the hospital.  Best laid plans... :)   Sometimes sanctuary peace just doesn't play out exactly as planned.  And now the kids have claimed the kitty kat lounge for themselves...or pile on top of me whilie I'm reading on it.

John and I joke about our bedroom being our "sanctuary"----we've been calling it this for years and for the most part, it is.  But sometimes, when we are all piled in our bed, screaming, tickling, crying, with the dog barking and jumping on us too, it's quite the opposite of a sanctuary.  It is chaos personified.  It is craziness bubbling up.  And when we reach our limit, we say "Get out of our sanctuary!  This is supposed to be peaceful!"...and the kids laugh in our faces and stay exactly where they are.  Right in the middle of our peace.

Most of the time, we wouldn't have it any other way.

body love

I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn't nervous about what would happen after I gave birth to the twins.  There was a couple of little demons that would poke their ugly heads up sometimes in my brain, making me wonder if I could handle the postpartum feeling of being fat and frumpy with no cute babies to hide behind.  Lots of people wouldn't know I had just given birth...and would they wonder if I was still pregnant?  Because let's be honest...after a woman gives birth...she looks...well, pregnant.

Surprisingly, when people ask me how I feel, I reply "amazing" and I'm not lying.  I feel freaking amazing.  I don't care about any of that crazy shit anymore.  I read a quote the other day on instagram (via Full Moon Mothering) that really spoke to me::

"There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection.  To me, that is the true essence of beauty."  -Steve Maraboli

When I read this, it hit me like a ton of bricks::  I'm done with it.  Done with worrying about how I look, how big my stomach appears, the scars, what other people are thinking.  I'm done.  I'm going to embrace me exactly where I'm at right now.  I love where I'm at.  I feel strong.  I feel alive and grateful that my body is a body that has given birth to five children.  We eat good food and love each other and are active and that is enough.  I am happy, right now.  

And let me tell you this...it's so freeing.  It's so freeing to be done with it....the comparisons, the worries.  Something about this quote broke me, and I'm so thankful for it.