So the thing about being a family where one parent can go away for weeks and months at a time, is that even in the days that are doing well on the home front, the team is missing a key player.
When you’re on a hockey team, for example, and you’re on the top line, you are expected to show up and play your best every time you hit the ice. Imagine that not only is your top line missing a player, but another one of the players is exhausted and can’t call for a line change.
Today, my girls and I all hit the proverbial ice and we were tired before the start of the third period.
Ok enough with the hockey metaphors, but I am Canadian and I love me some hockey! Haha!
Today was one of those days was jam packed from the time the feet hit the floor at 530 am. Multitasking was my middle name today and I know you can all relate. I also hope that you Can relate so I am not alone on this. I was literally working from my smart phone via email and our team share software while on the elliptical at the gym. By the time I finished my last meeting of the day, where I hope I made a decent impression, I needed 39 mins (yes, 39) to decompress. So I head into Kohl’s near my kids school and wander aimlessly looking at clearance items trying to get out of my own head.
Then IT happened.
I literally couldn’t stop it from happening either. I had tears streaming down my face and yep, I was definitely crying in the middle of a department store. My brain had been swirling with the nights plan : make dinner, clean up, homework, multiplication table practice, baths, laundry and I was running full throttle on the hamster wheel.
I left Kohl’s, with new PJs in hand, hoping the cashier hadn’t noticed my red eyes and I left to do school pick up. The swirling continued as my oldest was so upset that she was in a bit of a spiral of her own and my little was blissful, thank the Lord! 1/3 of us was hanging in there!
But there it was, my slap in the face to say “today is heinous & you need to take a step back”. So we drove from the after-school program directly to not one, but two take out spots and picked up dinner. We came home and did the bare minimum to meet our responsibilities and are now sitting on the couch, in our PJs and eating snacks while watching Ellen’s Game of Games.
I truly believe that taking tonight as a family “time out” was the best plan for my little ladies and I. And doing so without guilt or apology was even better.
Moral of the story is that if you need to let go of expectations and guilt that you aren’t “doing all the things” that you’re “supposed to” then do it! Grab your favourite PJs (or buy some new ones as you try not to cry in a department store) and take an evening off, you deserve it!
❤️M❤️
Momday Motivation 