No Where I'd Rather Them Be

I had a good realization recently about my motherhood identity. We are taught and I believe in the nobility and Christ-like nature of a mother's sacrifice for our children. But when I am struggling mentally and emotionally, the sacrifice doesn't feel very holy. There was a time in the recent past when other mom's posts about being SO grateful to be a mother left me feeling a little bitter, not knowing whether or not I felt that way.

First of all, getting myself to a better place emotionally has transformed how I feel about motherhood, and it is wonderful and I love it! I could probably talk about the importance of taking care of your mental health all day, but I will leave those details out for now.

A month or so ago I had a day where I did feel full of gratitude to be a mother and to be able to stay home with my children, and so I posted about this on instagram. In expressing this feeling, I used the phrase, "There is no where I would rather them be."

I felt slightly insecure about not being able to honestly say, "There is no where I'd rather be." But a few days later in reflecting on that I realized that yes, sometimes there are places I would rather be or things I would rather be doing, but that I don't do them right now, because I want to be taking care of my children. That I actually care about them more than I care about myself, in that sense. Being selfless doesn't mean you don't care about yourself (in fact, it is extremely important that you do care about yourself) it means that you have a bigger picture in mind.

These girls are my children and there is no where I would rather them be. I want to be the one taking care of my children. I want them to benefit from my love, from the gifts God gave me and the reasons He let me be their mother.

So I am not a perfect mom, and there are still hard things every day, but now I feel more aware and content with the fact that there is no where I would rather my children be. I love being a mother and feel great peace in fulfilling this role.

A Letter to Myself

An assignment from my therapist that I enjoyed:

Dear Elisa,

Five years later, and we are settling into a new life. I remember those days in Anzio apartments, in Tempe Arizona, with Jeff in grad school and the bishopric with two little munchkins, like it was yesterday. Things are beautiful now, but I want you to know I miss some things. And more importantly, where we are now is only because of who we became going through that wilderness. 

Now the girls are both in school (??!!) and I sort of miss those simple days at home with both of them, where I was their primary care giver and teacher. Morning fights with Elena over doing her hair, Abigail crying every single time I put on her PJs.

I miss the baby feet. OH those babuh toes!
I don't miss the sleepless nights, but I miss the sweetness of breastfeeding.

As much as I resented the environment of the apartments, I sort of miss those crazy afternoons where I couldn't calm the chaos until I filled the baby bath outside and let the girls play as I watched from the kitchen window. The girls blissfully unaware of the mess of gravel, spit, dog poop, cigarette ashes and who knows what out there in their play yard. I miss chasing Abigail up those stairs because nothing could stop her little active, explorer heart.

I miss baby hands. I miss Elena saying, "I love you, Mommy," and wanting me to put her to bed. I miss Elena's funny words and phrases like "last morning," and, "hanitizer".

I miss the people. The quirky ward. The amazing friends.

I almost miss the crazy smells in the apartment complex -- cigarette smoke, trash, pot, Asian food, Mexican food, fast food. Ok maybe I don't miss those, but the grit. The grit that came from wanting to move to our own home with a yard SO badly, but having to wait. The inner yearning that came from having my morning walks in search for peace disrupted by a parking lot full of cars and greasy pavement, with smoke and swear words lingering in the air.

Most of all I am grateful for who I became, for who we became, from going through that. You did your very best! You tried your very hardest to deal with a climate you hated, a depressing environment, loneliness, discouragement. You put yourself out there and made friends and created a good life for your little family.

Hang on and trust that "all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to my name’s glory, saith the Lord." [D&C 98:3]

With Love,
Elisa

A New Dawn

I have recently been reminded of my great need to share things I have learned in order to find meaning in my experiences.

Basically I am emerging from a several month depression. I am doing a LOT better. Yay!

I believe for me it was caused mostly by long-term sleep deprivation. What I mean by that is for months on end, I almost never got longer than three hours of uninterrupted sleep. This post is not about baby sleep, so I will leave it at that.

What did this look like for me? There are different levels of depression, and I would say mine wasn't severe. In fact, I think my coping skills and faith is what kept it almost manageable and hard to identify in myself or to be perceived by other people as needing help.

I was in survival mode, despite being 8 and 10 months down the line from the newborn baby phase that is by nature a survival stage. I was exhausted. Normal tasks like shopping, cooking and cleaning seemed completely overwhelming. I have struggled with shocking and uncharacteristic anger, unfairly directed at my 3 year old. Figuring out the baby sleep seemed impossible, getting my baby to eat more food seemed impossible. I was so tired! I could hardly make decisions. I understood the importance of breaks, exercise, dates, doing things for me, but it was hard to get them, or get them consistently. I felt tied to my breastfed baby so it was hard to schedule things. Even going on dates it was hard to relax (though I know it was still good). Add to that the many other circumstances that are in opposition to my happiness right now. But it's not just these circumstances - it's the mental state of feeling truly "not ok." Going to church and hanging out with friends sometimes left me feeling more isolated, because I felt like people didn't understand what a hard time I was having.

But this is why I am writing this. Realizing I was depressed and reaching out for help made all the difference!

One day I was reading symptoms of postpartum depression and saw that it is not always characterized by lots of crying or feeling sad. Some of the symptoms were anger and feeling totally overwhelmed. That's how I felt! I had depression! I'm not crazy, I don't have a lack of faith, motherhood isn't the worst thing in the world, I'm not a super lame mom, my friends aren't totally inadequate, I have depression! This realization helped me change my expectations for myself, not be so discouraged and reach out and get help.

To me, realizing and accepting mental illness helps you feel better about yourself and your life.

I have many more thoughts on this subject, but I will save that for another post.

Reasons I'm doing better: I started going to therapy which is wonderful to get validated and receive counsel and get some clarity on what I've been going through and where I can go from here. I went on an awesome trip to Indianapolis for a PKU Conference which was great on many levels - a break from parenting, a new place, a hotel stay, a fun and very fulfilling experience, reminding me of who I am and what some of my passions and abilities are. I went to a family reunion in Colorado, escaped the abominable Arizona heat, spent time with family, had breaks from my kids, spent time in nature, enjoyed how happy my children are when playing outside, had fun myself. Upon returning we made changes to get Abigail to sleep more so I have been getting longer stretches of sleep. This is probably the biggest difference. Other good things - Elena has started a part-time pre-school -- yay! I am singing in a professional level choir again for the first time since being married. Fall is almost here and it is our last school year in Arizona/this apartment/grad school. Wohoo!!

Life is looking up. It's a new dawn.

A little Motherhood prose

Lately things have been a little crazy...in my life...and in my mind. I will just leave it at that.

I just wanted to jot down a few thoughts while the girls eat some veggie sticks. And it may be weird, but this is the way I write sometimes. If you want a much better written blog post, see the previous one. I just re-read it, that was a good one!

Also, I am going to get some "professional help," in addition to this writing therapy.


Maybe I need to re-write my internal dialogue
Instead of focusing on my struggles and all the things I can't do, inside and outside motherhood, focus on
What am I doing?
I am sustaining life, nurturing creativity, blah blah blah. 
All the things that motherhood is.
I just now realized there is throw up from last week on the cupboard...

This is a huge sacrifice.
But if I embrace the sacrifice it will be less scary.


People talk about wishing they enjoyed these moments more.
People also talk about wishing people wouldn't tell them to enjoy it more.
Maybe it's supposed to be hard to enjoy, let alone survive.
Maybe it's also supposed to be looked back on with the fondness that can only come from going through it and struggling.



Some pictures from recently

Sick Elena last Monday. Honestly, the best day of my week. She took two naps. Jeff stayed home from work because it was the first business day after his week long trip to Sweden. It was fun to be with him! We did laundry (see next picture) and got organized and watched Fixer Upper.

First time successfully French-braiding. Now THAT is exciting. I watched some YouTube videos and realized something I had been doing (or, thinking, since I've hardly devoted any time to this) wrong

Awesome Dad. Helping me with aforementioned craziness as well as taking care of me when I got sick Saturday and Monday. Awesome PhD candidate. Just passed his comprehensive exam! Yay! One more year...we will survive!

Elena had this idea to make the crib into a fort today. :) Thus began the poetry in my head. 

Mostly I played with Abigail outside of it so she wouldn't mess it up. But this was a cute moment.