Mom Heart Moments #316

There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good.

“MOTHERS OF LITTLE BOYS WORK from son up to son down.” This saying always made me giggle, and it certainly works that way for mothers of little girls, too!

The pressures of being a mom aren’t small, and they don’t come only when you are ready for them. Here are a few things that have helped me over the years to keep from exploding under the pressures of being a mom.

1. A bit of variety. When my children were young, I found that if life got too stale, I would go under. When things felt boring, we would take a trip to the park or the zoo, meet with friends for a picnic, or get in the car and drive just to shake things up a bit.
2. A bit of quiet for me. If I am around people all the time for days and months on end, I will indeed explode! Clay and I figured out that I could go to a coffee shop early a couple of days a week to have coffee and a quiet time, write in my journal, and then come home a couple of hours later, before he left for work —and I would feel like a different person.
3. A bit of quiet for them . . . okay, all of us. Every afternoon in my children’s early years, I would put books and fun magazines in a basket for them along with a cup of something to drink. Then, everyone had to stay in their own areas for an hour. It helped my kids to become readers and to learn to enjoy time alone. Perhaps more importantly, it gave me a bit of time to look forward to every day, where I could have my own cup of tea that no one else could drink and a little time to regroup or rest or make a phone call.

How can you add these “bits” to your day?