Being a Stay at home Mom without losing your mind tip #2

Have you ever felt like your day had failed even before it began?
I felt this way at 8 am this morning, because 5:22 am came too early.  Because the plan I had in place to get up before the kids and have 45 minutes of reading the Bible and praying before what I assumed would be their 7 am wake up was completely and totally thawarted.  Because even though my plan for the day isn't really all that significant, I actually do have some expectations, and today those were that I would be rested and filled with my time with God and ready to meet the demands of a day with children.  So when I groggily tried to wrestle the kids back to sleep 53 minutes before my alarm went off without any success, I gave in and and tried to have a quiet time, feed children some freshly made carrot muffins, (from a mix) and have the kitchen picked up before Dave came back from a run at 7:45 am.  By the time he walked in the door both kids were screaming for muffins that weren't out of the oven, the kitchen was a disaster, I was still in pajamas and tripping over the explosion on my floor.  I just had that overwhelming feeling that I had completely failed at having a peaceful, orderly day and I hadn't even begun it yet.

And though my tip today is a blog about planning, even more important I think is receiving grace in those moments when you feel like a total failure.

Dave met me where I was this morning with that grace, "Do you want to go in early for a swim today?"  he asked as I was face down in my pillows on the bed.  That was in the plan for later, but he adjusted his plans for my needs and but I received the grace of an early getaway with gusto.   The walk to the pool, the exercise, and especially the jets in the hot tub were just what my body needed.  And now that the kids are asleep and I can take in the words of Christ that say "come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest" and this reminder is just what my soul needed.

But tip #2 in not totally losing your mind as a stay at home mom I think is in how to plan with a purpose, though a daily plan might just have one goal for the day on it!  And I am completely aware that every stage of one's single, married and motherhood life has so many different needs and boundaries and so must the purpose and daily duties.

I used to be a teacher and so I had lots of exprerience planning lessons.  I think I had something like 22 different preps a week as an art teacher at one point.  So I had unit plans and lesson plans and standards to meet and daily tasks.  Later I planned wilderness experiences that required me to plan all of one's survival and daily travel, food, first aid, skills, experiences etc for 3 weeks at a time in places like the Mongolian wilderness or the Upper Pennisula.  I learned how to plan and then even got a chance to teach people how to plan their own wilderness/cross cultural/mission/service trips like that.  My biggest mantra was "make sure that your planned experiences meet your purpose!"  How I drilled that into my co-workers as we planned trips across Asia for our students.  The simplest way I can describe putting together a purposeful eduational experience goes something like this is "Pray-Plan-Prepare-Go-Do-Reflect".  There's more to it, but there you have the bare bones.

2.5 years ago when I left that life and embarked on motherhood, a move across the world, a new identity entirely in a competely new place all my plans went out the window.  I didn't even know what my purpose was.  I really floundered for a long time, and was thrown for a huge loop when Asher decided he wanted to be conceived when Josie was 7 months old.  All my plans were undermined, even the plans I didn't have.  And when you are on shaky ground, almost alone, the slope into depression is steap and slippery.

But I think I've crawled up even just a little in the past 2 years and I have been encouraged to revisit what I did know to be a sure fire recipe for a really good transformational education experience.  This time though, I'm both educator, participant, and debriefer a lesson plan of myself experiencing motherhood..

Here goes:

Pray.  Most recently, Oswald Chambers has been encouraging and instructing me in prayer, most convictingly that it is through Christ's agony that we can pray and be as close to God as we are to His Spirit living within us. Ann Voscamp has been an encouraging pilgrim through her blog.  I have yet to read her book but plan to soon.  Yesterday my cousin wrote this practical blog about prayer which help bring into focus and into reality what prayer is all about.   Prayer is our connection to God, and that connection is the source of our purpose, even if that purpose could be a 24 hour (or 24 year) "hang in there!"

Plan.  Dave and I have an hour carved out each week to put our weekly plan together.  That mostly means I know where he is during the week and when to expect him home along with our various commitments for the week.  So I'm not wondering when he's coming home from the library or tutoring.  So I know what mornings I can expect to have an hour to go for a run, or like today, a plan for a swim.  If it's going to happen during the week, it's got to be on the calendar.  But I need to go further, and these ideas have been something to think about.  For me, I want my days to have purpose, to be moving myself and my family in a direction after that purpose.  I really do like the format of these planning sheet because it gives a focus for the day, and it's not laundry.  Thanks Ann.

Prepare.  Here's  where it get hard with 2 little kids.  Preparing for shopping or church or a trip to the library or dinner or whatever.  I am forgetful, unorganized, and not that good at this. I have to give myself an hour to get to something that would normally take 10 minutes door to door with 2 kids.  So, the more I prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually for the tasks of the day, the better I am.  And I'll put that early hour of time with God into the prepare section as well.  That is, when it happens!

Go.  Do it Mama!  Wake up. Go get em.  Warrior On!

Do.  Do the dishes even when they are piled high with yesterday's stuck on oatmeal.  Get the kids in the stroller and haul the laundry on top of them to and from the laundry room.  Pick up the toys for the gazillionth time.  Get dinner made early if you can.  Make those Sunday school lessons.  Get the flour for the play dough making activity and teach those 31 kids how to make their own salt dough even if they come in 3 at a time over a span of an hour, keep teaching!  Do what needs to be done.

Reflect.  This.  This writing for me is my reflection.  It's where I'm taking all those little parts of my day, and placing them against the scripture that I've read, the words of wisdom that I've heard, and the Spirit's prompting in my heart and trying to make sense of it.  For me, writing it down is an essential part of making any kind of connection of me in body, me in mind, me in spirit and the me that is mommy.  And I think that the more I dig deeper into the pray and the plan, I'm able to prepare more thoroughly, I'm able to dig deeper into the going and doing and be more fully present there.  The reflecting has been a place to put the pieces of so many fragmented parts of my life into some kind of whole.  To bring meaning out of scrubbing floors on my knees and washing out poopy diapers in a leaky toilet.

And before I forget, there's always GRACE.  When the "Go, and Do" aren't exactly on schedule.  I'm living in it right now.  6 hours ago I genuinely believed that my day was a failure and it hadn't even begun.  But God's given me this hour, this unexpected quiet time to still my heart and thoughts and to invite his Sprit to speak in my heart.  Probably the best way to receive  those moments of grace is with our face lifted to the sky, in gratitude, receiving holiness raining down, aware, of who is going before us and hemming us in behind.

"Such knowledge is to lofty for me, I cannot attain unto it.  Where can I go from  your presence, where can I hide from your Spirit?" 

Oh, and by the way, you haven't failed this day, because, let's face it, this day, your life, and what is to come was never yours to begin with.  :)

Tamuske! *


*Tamuske is the Mongolian term for "press on!"  We used it several times in our mountain climbing experiences.