What I learned this weekend
Every mother I talk to seems to struggle with accepting help from other people. I am guilty of this too. In fact, there is this strange voice inside your motherly head that tries to tell you that you’re not Super Mom if you accept help from others. I found myself arguing with that voice this past weekend.
I was in the bathroom of my in-laws cabin when I just lost it. I leaned my head over the bathroom sink, put my head in my hands, and started to cry. A pretty good cry too; the kind of cry where your freshly applied black mascara runs down your face, but at the same time the kind of cry where you try to stay really quiet so no one hears you.
I was crying for all sorts of reasons – morning sickness won’t go away, my clothes don’t fit, I didn’t hang out with my kids enough this morning, Colton won’t sleep through the night, I must suck, yadda yadda – but the real reason was, I was e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d. When I came out of the bathroom and my pity party, I could tell that everyone noticed something was wrong.
That night, my in-laws offered to take my kids to dinner so Ryan and I could have a night out (we were spending the weekend with them at the family cabin). Again, that voice came up and tried to tell me that I should be going to dinner with my kids. If it wasn’t my anniversary, I probably would have insisted that we all go together instead. It’s that stupid voice that doesn’t let you accept help.
When we got home, my in-laws had the kids bathed and ready for bed. Just as I was about to go to bed myself, my mother-in-law offered to have a “sleep over with the kids” in her bed. This meant that I could sleep for a full 6 hours, or 8 hours, or whenever my little heart desired because there wouldn’t be little footsteps approaching my bed before the sun rises to wake me up in the morning.
Again, that voice started to chime in and tell me that I was a horrible mom for not sleeping with my own kids. But before I could even open my mouth and argue, my husband shot me “a look” and my mother-in-law shooed me away. Thank the Lord for them because I slept until 7:30am … uninterrupted. I woke up feeling like a different person. I came downstairs to find breakfast being served, the kids in great spirits (and really happy to see me) and no one looking at me like I was a loser, lazy mom for sleeping in.
You see, nothing bad happened when I accepted the help. No one thought I was a horrible mom and I got the rest that I so desperately needed. And my mother in law? She got sleep too! Isn’t that always the way it goes? Kids are way more behaved and cooperative for their grandparents (or do grandparents have some secret parenting power that we haven’t learned yet?). Either way, I learned a lot this weekend. I learned to step aside more often and ignore that little voice inside my head that tells me I have to do it all. If not for my sanity, for the sanity of everyone around me.
Meanwhile, my husband is currently with both kids at Costco right now so I can blog, rest and just be in silence for a little bit. So yet again … I’m getting spoiled by others and I’m soaking in every single moment. Don’t judge. Here are some photos from our weekend.
Thanks for listening.
My baby bump at 20 weeks. We decided on a name this weekend: Nolan Ryan Cross will arrive in this world September 2015!! To say we are excited is an understatement; we are over the moon! The kids have been calling him “baby Nolan” all weekend. It’s official.
You can’t tell from this photo, but her hat has kitten ears and a tail on it. Colton kept ‘petting her all day’ and saying, come here my little kitty kat. It was the cutest thing. She didn’t like that much, but Colton and I got a kick out of it.
Colton wanted Ryan to eat this leaf so badly. He kept throwing it into his face saying, “eat it!” Ryan actually took a bite out of it and then I thought he was going to panic because he started spitting it out so frantically. It’s just a leaf, babe. You will survive.
