I’ve seen so many articles recently about how motherhood can be hard and parenting can be hard when you’re in the new stages of it (heck, even mine).  It’s such a wonderful, refreshing thing to see parents coming together and acknowledging that fact.  And while, yes, this is tough, it is also doable and we are surviving.  So many of the posts lately are very real, obviously, but they are also a little… well, sad.  Because they have this fog of, “Holy shit I’m drowning” attitude, my own post included.  And let’s be honest, we are sometimes!  But let me shed some light on how we can come out the other side stronger and even happier then when we started.

Acceptance

When we have an expectation that parenthood is going to look a particular way and then it gets flipped on its head and all hell breaks loose the most valuable thing we can do for ourselves is to accept things the way they are.

Ditch the idea of parenting that you had in your head before your tiny human entered this world, and look around at what actually is, and then… accept it.

Accept the dirty dishes, accept the sleepless nights, accept your exhaustion, accept that you haven’t showered in a couple of days.  When they get older and are still not sleeping through the night, accept that too, and the terrible, wonderful, twos.

There is nothing wrong.

It just is.

This may not be the picture we had in our heads before we became parents but this is the actual work of art hanging on our wall.

Sit back for a moment and take it all in.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, and remember it.  Breathe in deep and remember the scent.  Look down at your baby and take in every detail of their face – every wrinkle, every crevasse of their skin as it touches yours, and forget the world for a minute.

Be Present

“Time goes too fast.”

It’s something we’re all told at one point or another before we have kids, and we shrug it off.  Until we become parents and it really, really does.

We are hit with the realization when we, all of the sudden, look up and 6 months or a year has gone by.  And when you look back it’s all a blur.

As parents we tend to go into auto pilot.  After a while we get into our daily routine, put our heads down and GO.

Wake up… Eat Breakfast… Drop off baby… Go to work… Pick up Baby.. Eat dinner.. Tubby.. Book.. Sleep.

Day in and day out we do the same thing.  We find our groove and we move like a well oiled machine.

But then we look up..  the summer is almost over.  Another year has passed.  Another winter.  And so on.

What I challenge you to do is to stop for a moment.

Turn the TVs, phones, and Ipads off.

Throw the nighttime routine out the window and shake things up every once in a while to go to the park after work and bring a picnic.

Take off work early and grab your kiddo and do the same.

Take a weekend to do absolutely nothing but watch your baby play outside or go for a walk in a field and see what they discover.

Instead of taking a picture to remember, put your phone down and just look them in the eyes and remember the color and their lashes and how freakin LONG they are.

Just ever so often, stop.  Just stop, and be present.