Category: motherhood

motherhood

Supposed To

Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

I don’t know about you, but I can sure drown in a sea of “supposed to”. 

As in, I’m supposed to be able to handle it all.  I’m supposed to be a good mommy, a dynamic teacher, and a loving wife.

I’m supposed to be able to wash the laundry, iron the shirts, make the dinner, mop the floors, brush the teeth, nurse the baby, comfort the crier…and still have something left at the end of a day for my husband and myself.

Supposed to.  Yeah, right.

I’ve really been struggling with all this lately.  Finding the balance between life and work and love and family isn’t as easy as a book or a magazine or a movie or reality TV makes it seem.  It’s really, really hard to ever feel like I’ve done enough, been enough, made enough to get to the next day.

I have absolutely broken in the past few weeks.  Thank God I have a fabulous CNM who checked my thyroid and is treating me for hypothyroidism triggered by pregnancy, which is in turn treating the post-partum depression my unfuncitioning thyroid triggered so severely. 

It’s too easy to think it’s all in my head and if I would just get it together and do what I’m supposed to and be as grateful as I’m supposed to be for the wonderful life I have, it will all go away. 

Actually, it won’t.  So now my supposed to list is evolving.  There are certain things I have to do.  I have to take my medicine.  I have to make time for me, for my husband, for my marriage.  I have to accept that my best right now is my best because I get out of bed everyday and trust that today will be better. 

I’m not supposed to do anything else to be a better mom.  I love my kids.  And that’s all I’m supposed to do.

motherhood · summer

Lazy Crazy June

Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  I was supposed to be able to kick back and relax once school was officially over.  You know lazy days of summer and all that.

There’s a reason lazy rhymes with crazy.

It’s because you’re crazy if you think a mother of three is allowed to be lazy.

We have been non-stop the past three weeks.  First, it was our impromptu beach trip with Marmee.  Then it was running errands, visiting friends, and dental checkups.  Next came VBS and our houseguests, Aunt Audrey and Hailey Cousin (this is so she is not confused with Hailey Reed).  This past weekend was no down time but here, there, and everywhere as we celebrated Father’s Day with five great dads. 

And this week has brought swimming lessons, wellness checks for Amelia and me, more birthday celebrations, and two days of staff development I agreed to so I could make some extra moula to fund all this summer craziness.

Almost makes me wish we were back in school and following a set routine.  Almost.

Because as crazy as things have been and as difficult a time as I am having dealing with the “supposed to” of life (more in a later post), I wouldn’t trade this random life.

Belle’s first dive at swimming lessons.
Eating dinner with Hailey Cousin.

Aunt Audrey helping out.
Hailey passed out after a hard day.
A pretty good CVS run thanks to SouthernSavers and Laura.  $4 for each pack of diapers!
(and rainchecks for deoderant and toothpaste)
motherhood · Paynes

First Days with Five

Lindsey P. Brackett1 Comment

No, I have not time warped into my future and seen myself as the mother of five.  The chances of that are about as good as the chance that Amelia will sleep all night.

Instead I’m hosting my niece and sister this week since it’s VBS and if I’m going to have 5 kids it might as well be at a time when they can attend pre-planned activities with someone other than me.  Disclaimer: Audrey doesn’t like being called a kid, but since she’s 14 and my baby sister, I’ll call her whatever I want.  I could really embarrass her and refer to her as Weetsie for the rest of this post, but she is being rather helpful and I don’t want to tick her off.

In addition to Audrey, the helpful teenager, I’ve got my niece who is 8 weeks older than Annabelle and almost as entertaining.  So far she has walked through the Mall of Georgia singing about how she’s afraid of thunderstorms, named off which of her aunts she finds the scariest (not me), and picked our beautiful yellow calla lily next to the mailbox.  Hmmmm….maybe entertaining isn’t the right word.  And she only wants to eat Doritos.  For breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  For that matter, Doritos are about all Audrey wants to eat as well, and she refuses to share.  So now who’s the kid?

They’ve been here since Sunday afternoon and things are going pretty well considering that it’s a crazy week and I’ve already used up my patience quota for the month.  The girls don’t want to nap, but they tend to crash by 8:30 and sleep all night (excluding baby Amelia) and I’ll take that.

Monday was very productive, or at least I thought so until I realized that even though I had vacuumed, done dishes, laundry, made dinner, and been to Jazzercise, I had not made my kids animal costumes for VBS.

Today was crazy due to weather and my belief that I can accomplish more with 5 kids than I can with 3.  We do have a Father’s Day gift, though.  Lovingly selected from the dollar aisle at Target, but they’re sure it’s what Daddy needs.  And we did have dinner with my grandparents, even though it was at the mall food court due to the storms blowing a transformer in their subdivision.

Oh, well.  Tomorrow is always another day with no mistakes in it, right?  No mistakes yet, at least.  Maybe it can include a nap….

motherhood

Random Acts of…Planning

Lindsey P. Brackett4 Comments

You know I’m a teacher. And one of the first things teachers learn at “teacher school” (right after Board Writing 101) is flexible planning.

That’s right.

Plan to be flexible.

Spend hours crafting the perfect differentiated lesson plan that meets all learning styles and covers a page of the all-important Standards, but be flexible if it doesn’t work or half your kids are out puking or there’s a last-minute assembly of some sorts. Flexible. That’s a teacher’s mantra in May.

It should be my mommy mantra everyday. Because everyday I plan (and by plan I mean contemplate in my head with my eyebrows squished together in concentration) how I am going to do a better job.
Somehow it never works out like I picture it.

This afternoon I decided to not rush around trying to actually exercise before Wednesday Night Supper at church. Instead I planned (how foolish) to be spontaneous. I know. There’s something wrong with that logic.

I picked up Amelia, tried in vain once again to convince my M.I.L. that she’s not going to starve if she has less than 5 oz in a feeding, and went for a drive. Sort of. I have real estate ADD when I drive these days since we’re actively looking for a new house and trying to sell ours.

So I took the long(ish) way to Cornelia via a subdivision with some homes I wanted to check out. Loved them. Loved one that wasn’t for sale the most. Pondered knocking on the door to ask if they would ever consider selling. Decided I was crazy and possibly sleep-deprived and drove on to the bank to get Belle’s carseat out of what we affectionately refer to as “the little white car.”

This took longer than planned. See I’m trying to save cell phone minutes. More later. So I was going to go inside and tell Joshua I took the seat and would pick up the girls. But I forgot that since the economy downturned, the bank has started closing the lobby at 4. I parked in the front and already had Amelia out. So I hoofed it around back (exercise for today, check!), rang the bell, got in, and carried out the rest of my plan. Give bank employees opportunity to ooohhh and awww over Amelia.

Then I headed to the daycare center. Here is where I thought I was really smart. It was a quarter till 5. Supper starts at 5. Amelia needs to eat around this time. I passed her off to a friend at the center and locked myself in the bathroom figuring I’d pump and we’d both be happy.

Hmmm…I have 6 bottles for pumping. Two are full of milk and in my M.I.L’s fridge. Three were dirty because they came from the M.I.L’s. That leaves…one. My math skills aren’t great but even I can figure out I have more boobs than that.

So, I had to pump one side at a time. Not efficient. Not enough. But I was in a hurry so I was–you guessed it–flexible.

Took back my baby and gathered my big girls. Into the car, buckled seatbelts, and ten minutes later were on our way. We made it to church at 5:30. I mentioned dinner started at 6, right?

Oh, and it was Missions Recognition night. My girls were supposed to be dressed up, not wearing daycare center play clothes. Well, at least they matched.

Crazy, hectic, flexible life.

motherhood · Paynes

Random Acts of…Mamas

Lindsey P. Brackett2 Comments


There’s just something about a mama. When other people tell me that it’s not so bad and I only have three weeks left before summer and everything’s going to be okay, I don’t really believe them. When my mom tells me it is, I believe a little bit more.

I guess it’s because I watched her work full-time with all seven of us. She would get up in the morning, get herself ready, load the dishwasher, wake us, usually have one, if not two, of my younger sisters she had to dress, prod my daddy to get ready, check us all for matching clothes, two shoes, library books, and lunch money, referee a fight over cereal, drive us down the long driveway to catch the bus, chase the bus if we missed it, and somehow she did all this before 7 a.m.
I can barely handle getting myself and Amelia together in the morning, much less Annabelle and Madelynne who are thankfully becoming a little more independent, though they still want me to brush their teeth, which I’ve learned to do one-handed while holding Amelia, thank you very much.
My mama has been there. She knows how hard it is to balance work and kids and laundry and dishes and dinner and guilt. So, this Mother’s Day I hope she knows how grateful I am that she helps me believe I can do it too. And since I think I turned out okay (most of the time), I can believe my girls will be okay.
The only problem is, she’s an impossible standard to reach. She’s not perfect but she’s way better at multi-tasking than I am. One night when she was here taking care of me after Amelia was born (and she truly was here for me), I watched her fry chicken, negotiate the Easter Egg Roll with the White House, check and respond to rapid-fire email about the situation with the Easter Egg Roll, answer her other phone when my across-the-country sister called, all while she was holding Amelia. I’m not sure what I was doing, but it definitely pales in comparison.
I’m not my mama, but I hope someday my girls look back at me and wonder how I did it all too. Because regardless of how the laundry is folded or what’s on the table for dinner, they are being just as cared for and just as loved as I always was. And even though she’s probably messed up some, I don’t remember loving her any less, and that is what I pray for these days, that despite the chaos of life, my girls will always know I love them more than a clean house or a full-night’s sleep.
I think that’s the secret to being a good mom: raising kids who know they are unconditionally cherished no matter how many mistakes you (or they) make along the way.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mama! I love you!