Happy New Year! I hope you had a restful holiday season and took some time to yourself. I know how hard that can be, so i don’t take my saying this lightly.
This past weekend, we went through our Gratitude Jar (see here for a reference ). It was just what we needed after a busy week, to sit down together and read summaries of each week of 2016. While there were some lows, we were able to sit and laugh and reflect on the highs more.
I think this gave me some insight to the above quote: “The art of mothering is to teach the art of living to your children.” I saw it recently and it really sat with me. The author of the quote is Elaine Heffner and she writes on Good Enough Mothering.
I know that i am like so many others when i say ‘i had such a hard day’ but when i sit and reflect on it, sure one part was AWFUL (like when my son bit my daughter, when my daughter had a high fever and all our plans had to change, when my son called me a fricken’ stupidhead, you get the picture) but other parts were fantastic. Like when my kids went rock climbing for the first time, or when we had a blast bowling. Each day has some good parts in it. And if it hasn’t yet by 8:00pm, i make a point to do something nice for myself intentionally.
I’m not one to do New Year’s Resolutions as i think it puts a lot of pressure on, but i like the idea to set an intention or to use a Core Word that helps motivate me. This year, i’m going to focus on Breathe – to breath in and out before i respond to my kids’ when they are entering Bananas Zone. And for myself when i start to feel like a chicken with her head cut off.
I think this will help me teach the art of living to my kids – to stop and take a breathe, to notice things around me, to bring joy into the mundane parts of my life. I am working on creating a balance with what i need as a woman, and to be present for my children. It’s my job as a parent to teach this balance to them. I think this is the ‘art’ part of living. Kids can teach us about being mindful too – i love watching my daughter draw forever, and my son is devouring books. I need to remind them that it is important to create this balance so that our needs don’t collide. It’s a good lesson too that our children can teach us the adults about living as well.
