A Working Mama and her Summer Guilt

When you are not working(outside the home) Summer vacation is exciting and carefree and wide open and, let's be honest, often overwhelmingly long when you have kids home all Summer. 

I know that. 

But, when you are working and your kids are on Summer vacation it just goes way too fast, 

it's a little depressing and often guilt-filled, when you are the mom.

So last week I decided I was taking a day off of work and the kids and I were going to do something fun.  My idea of fun might have been laying in bed with a really good book all day and not getting out of my pajamas, but we really needed to get away from home and do something fun together.

Two things on our Summer List were to have a picnic at Allerton Park and go to the swimming pool where my sister lives and my niece works.
Luckily it was a hot, beautiful day and we got to wander around the park, have a picnic, pick up my nephew to go to the pool with us, swim for hours and then spend the night at my sister's.
For my kids, that is seriously like their DREAM day.

This park is beautiful, we love coming here, there is so much to see.
The sunken garden is one of my favorite spots and the kids find a million different things to climb on in there, naturally. Statues, flower gardens, koi fish pond, the mazes, the mansion... we definitely didn't see it all this time.

This was a really good day, the three of us had a lot of fun together and my mama guilt was eased, if only for a few days. Hey, I'll take it. 

I gave up on the illusion of the "perfect summer" and marking everything off of our Summer Lists a  long time ago... there are no perfect Summers or even perfect days and we always want the opposite situation from the one we are in. Or I do anyway... And I know I am not the only one.
If I am working I wish I wasn't, if I am home, the kids are driving me nuts and I am secretly dreaming of all of the jobs I could have that day...Usually jobs where arguing kids aren't allowed and I am not cleaning up anyone's mess but my own.

{Charlotte on the high dive, she said it was mortifying but she kept doing it anyway}

We don't get a lot of whole days like this and even if we did, all days are not like this, but man am I glad to have one every once in a while.
Watching them go off the high dive even when they are scared too, down the slide 50 times, hang out with their cousins, watching them being so nice and sweet and helpful to each other with no fighting and little threatening on my part. That is a damn good feeling.
Many days it's easy to feel like you are barely keeping it together, that you are surely ruining your kids. It's nice to have a day when you honestly feel like you aren't doing half bad and that yes, even though you are working and they aren't doing exactly what you wished they were doing every day...It's still okay.

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On Wednesday I got to tell the mama guilt to kiss my ass... what a nice feeling.

Happy Weekend!

Taking Action + Slow Sundays

Action. 
That's the word I chose for this year.
{I talked more about that here}
I went back and forth between intention/intentional and action... and back and forth some more before I landed on action and stayed there.
Intentional would have worked too because they have similar meanings to me but action felt right.

Let me explain why.
One of what I consider my biggest flaws(just one!) is my lack of action, or inaction when it comes
to all the things I want to do... And not just do, But do/learn/make/build/go/accomplish/experience.
I often feel like there are so many things in my head that I want to do that it just becomes overwhelming
and I don't do them... or I start them and don't finish them.
Often before I get started on something I talk myself out of it by telling myself why it won't work, why I will never get there and how I will probably not follow-through anyway, so why even start?
Geeez.... great attitude there, Amy. I know, I know.

Enter: Slow Sundays.

This is just one teeny tiny thing in a list of a million things that I want to start doing and this one is really important to me.

We are not great over here about family dinners, which is something we always did growing up.

When I lived at home my mom fixed dinner every night and we all ate together at the dinner table.

Because of work schedules and habits we have never been great at this and it's something I want to change at home.

So we will work on the dinner thing for sure and have also started Slow Sunday breakfasts, which we have really been trying to do for a while now.

Weekends are sometimes easier, so Sunday or even Saturday breakfasts, are very do-able for us.

There is more time, less rush and there is time to prepare, clean up and enjoy a big meal without rushing to clean up, have showers, do homework/study spelling words, etc. that we have during the typical school week.

I am excited to try some new breakfast casserole recipes and homemade cinnamon rolls is on my long list of things to try.

The kids love breakfast food and I think I will be getting far fewer complaints than at dinner time, which is a huge motivator for me. 

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This is just one of the many things on my never-ending list of things I want to change in the new 

year and continue to work on.

You will hear me talk a lot about my one little word this year- how I am doing, what it means to me and what areas of my life need the most work and how this one little word applies to these areas.

It is already the last day of January and I am feeling pretty good about this month, often I am disappointed in myself and the lack of progress I have made at this point, or disgusted that I have already completely lost all momentum and don't even remember what in the hell my word for the year is supposed to be.

Is there something you are currently working on? Any big or little goals or things on your mental to-do list? How was January for you?

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!