That’s it, we’re an indoor family now.
Just kidding. Sort of…
A big change from this year and the previous couple years is partaking in the 1000 Hours Outside challenge. As you may recall, this is something I spent a lot of energy tracking these past two/three years. I’m grateful for that, as it allowed me to focus on something that I truly believe was for our own wellbeing. But something you might not know about me is I can become a little… tracking obsessed. When my eldest was born I tracked everything. When he ate and for how long. How many diapers I changed each day. When he fell asleep and when he woke up. At first, keeping track of these things brought be comfort. Later, it became obsessive and anxiety producing. Were things getting better or worse? Was he waking more or less? The answers let me know if I was having a good or bad day, whether or not I was succeeding or failing at my new job of motherhood.
I found the same to be true with tracking out outside hours. At first it was great. It helped me to get everyone outside every day. But by the end of last year I was exhausted at trying to make sure we tracked more hours than the day before. Trying to hit that number was my main focus. I forced us out when we didn’t want to, when it was too rainy or too cold. Then, I overcompensated by allowing the TV to soothe them when we came back in, exhausted and overwhelmed. Many of you, I’m sure, will not have this experience with tracking your outside time. I have recommended the program to all of my friends. It has been invaluable in teaching me the importance of independent play, as well as realizing we could ALWAYS do better at spending more time outside.
But, I’ve shifted focus this year. At the risk of sounding selfish, my focus this year is not on the kids. It’s on myself. I have prioritized the things that make ME feel better, and I think this shift has made all the difference with the kids, too. (Maybe not shockingly, as we hear this wisdom all the time. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Put on your own oxygen mask first… etc).
Matt and I have prioritized our health this year. Going to the gym/running/home workouts have been a non-negotiable. We’re lighter and more energized as a result.
Date nights twice a week. The kids have to be in bed and stay there so we can have an evening to ourselves. We pre-plan these days so we know ahead the battle that will take place during bedtime (some nights getting three kids down is just hard, am I right?)
The focus these winter months is much more “no TV” and less “get outside”. This, again, is truly a selfish move, as I’m exhausted at the TV noise on top of the noise of 3 loud children, and I’m already dressing 3 kids for outside time twice a day Monday through Friday for school pickup and drop off (except on snow days of course). Although I still LOVE getting everyone out, and it still is a priority for me, especially on a nice sunny day, I am no longer tracking our exact time or trying to hit a certain number. We’ve spent a few hours outside helping dad shovel the driveway. We’ve gone sledding a few times. When we go out for pickup and drop off and the weather’s decent I add on a walk around the block. But all of this is only if I want to.
And as a result of these minor changes, the boys have been playing together better by themselves. They can go hours at a time in their own make believe world. They’re upstairs playing in their rooms, or running around in circles on the main floor while dinner cooks. They don’t need me telling them when and where to play. I’m not setting up activities in an attempt to entertain them or control their environment. It’s easier on me to not to try to micro manage. (I’m going to talk about this again tomorrow.) In today’s parenting world- where we are overwhelmed with knowledge, it becomes mentally exhausting to try to “do it all”. Have they had every colour of vegetable this week? What milestone are they behind on? Have they spent 3 hours outside in free play each day? For me, all of these things I’ve hyper focused on, as a way of measuring my own parenting success. But I’m working on dropping all that now, I’m doing the best I can, and that’s enough. If this sort of stuff stresses you out too, I’d strongly recommend doing the same.
But for now I’ll say, we have good moments and bad moments. I’m working on my MOM BURNOUT and on not feeling like absolute sh*t when I do something that feels like I’m “phoning it in” as a mom. Like turning the TV on. Or when we give them their before-bed-banana after they refused dinner, again.
We are home for (another!) snow day today, and I have another post brewing on how we’ve encouraged the kids to play together and independently, which relates to a lot of what I talked about here today, so if you’re a mom and this topic relates to you, I’ll be back for more yappin tomorrow.
Until then…