challenges – Page 5 – Soundly Sarah

[Featured], Mental Health, Motherhood, Respectful Parenting, The magic (in the mess). ♡

Fumbling towards.

08/21/2019 No Comments

I’m trying to make sense of who I am as a mom. Still.

I don’t really know what this making sense looks like, tastes like, or feels like to wear against the skin of my arms, but I keep trying to reach forward into the realm of mom identities and find something to latch onto.

I’m not the crunchy mom. Not the boss mom. Not the Pinterest/crafty mom. Not the helicopter mom. Not the wine mom. Not the perfect mom. Definitely not the cool mom.

There is nothing wrong with any of these moms, I’m just not them.

In this attempting to make sense of my mom identity, I’m doing something I try hard to not do to anyone else. I’m labeling myself, and admittedly masking it as attempt to try to figure out where I fit. I’m taking a square and pushing it into the round hole of mom identities, and expecting to meet my deliverance.

These walls are too thick.

I guess I could be a wannabe minimalist mom. An RIE mom (on my good days). An obviously plus sized mom. A boring/little too honest mom. Kinda the hot mess mom. A “reads too much and really loves sleep and chocolate” mom.

Or, in any case, the sum of those moms.

But what lies in the lingering and claiming/writing/marinating of such mom identity(s)? Is there sense to uncover? Ease to be found? Will I be less of a foggy mess and more (wiggles fingers *magically*) “with purpose”?

Side note: will blogging in this bloody thing become not be such a forgetful, directionless conquest?

Or in claiming something, anything, on this mothering journey, and trying to fit into it — will it only further lead to my own bewildered, dazzling confusion?

Perhaps this making sense… it is more than a label. More than a type. More than a niche.

Perhaps it is simply settling on where I find myself smiling in this mothering journey, and letting that be the sense and the identity that I need.

I don’t know. But I’m fumbling. It is a peaceful, awkward tumble. I’m reaching towards and casting away. Eventually, I’ll land.

Mental Health, Motherhood

The words.

07/22/2019 No Comments

I’m unexpectedly revisiting an old journal of thoughts that I opened as I couldn’t remember it’s purpose.

These are the words of postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression.

Attempting to get philosophical about how much I’ve grown or healed since these days is a bit too wax-poetic for the raw pain of what this experience was and sometimes continues to be for me.

But, I can now say, and truly believe, that my kid loves me. 💚⁣ ⁣

Milestones & Genetics, Motherhood

Different by a lot.

02/18/2018 No Comments

Raising a child with a significant gross motor delay is different than a raising a child who develops typically. At times, it’s different by a lot.

For instance, what did we do this weekend? We finally reached the point we needed to lower O’s crib from the newborn position as he’s gotten pretty good at coming to a stand (hurray!). His mobile finally had to come down, too. He turned 2 at the end of November.

I want to reach out and bring O to play dates and such, but he just can’t do a lot of stuff other kids his age can. And a trip to the park for him? It looks *dramatically* different than a trip for a typical developing child of his age.

At times, it’s isolating. I want moms to bond with over our kids shared triumphs. But for so much of the big stuff that’s happening to him right now? The mom’s with kids his age went though it a year and a half ago. It’s old news.

Every day in every way I’m celebrating him. He amazes me. But, I’m also worrying, wanting and aching for him. I don’t know if he knows if he is different or not (how can he not when all the children around him at childcare walk?). In a few years I don’t know if that difference will still be there or not.

But right now, I just want him to be happy. To find his people. To fit in. And it feels like the cards are stacked a bit too much against him at such an early age. I hate that I can’t change that. I realize some of this is my worried mom perception, yes. But it’s the part of it that’s not that keeps me awake at night.

Motherhood, The magic (in the mess). ♡

She works.

11/17/2017 No Comments

A year ago today I went back to work after my mat leave.

Biggest things I’ve learned so far?

Being a mom and working full-time is no freakin’ joke.
I’m tired. Not newborn tired, but it rivals what came after that. Weekends have never, ever been sweeter, though they are now much harder than they ever were before.
I feel like I have no brain cells. I’ve come to realize my brain pre and post mat leave are two dramatically different things. Post mat leave brain is still struggling to understand what that means, on top of fitting everything else into it that I’m now asked of.
I have very little time for mostly anything. Between work demands, parenting demands, and personal demands, the time I have in my life is stretched so thin that a flick of the wrist could break it’s mere illusion.
And I miss my kid. A whole freakin’ lot. Picking him up from childcare everyday fills me with such a sweet, blissful, contentment. It makes me whole. My heart feels radiant and complete. And saying goodbye to him the next morning is a bittersweet event that always, always comes too soon.

But there is something undeniably needed in this crazy, exhausted, sometimes dead brain of mine: a purpose beyond myself and my world. One that gives. That cares. That spreads joy. That empowers. That helps.

And so work I will.

Milestones & Genetics, Motherhood

Tired but thankful.

10/07/2017 No Comments

We’re staying in the hospital tonight as O is in recovery from one of his surgeries. Here are the highlights thus far:

The baby O is sharing his room with is ten months and potty trained. My brain is so confused.
O was up both nights from 9:15-2:45, and then off and on until 6. He kept thinking he had just gotten up from a nap when the nurses needed to do stuff to him. We are… tired as hell.
BC Children’s Child Life dept. is a magical place of flashy lights and dazzling distractions that are like crack cocaine to an upset toddler.
There is no greater hell than sharing a hospital room with a frequently upset baby when your own baby is frightened by crying. No. Greater. Hell.
We have half a room this time instead of third a room! Despite the other stuff, this too is magical.
Nurses that get some stuff can wait and that sleep matters most are my favourite. Nurses that feel they must do everything for every box on the clock (after you just spent an hour and half getting your child down) are not my favourite.
For O’s next surgery we get to be in the new BC children’s hospital ward that has all individual rooms! Hurray!

That’s all for now. We’re headed home soon. I might try to smuggle the giant morphine drip machine home with us. For serious.

Signed,

Tired but thankful.