Today’s blog is about slowing down. Yes, it’s ironic that I’m writing this on the day before Thanksgiving, one of the busiest travel days of the year. Typically, on this day I am in a car, driving hours across state lines to officially kick off the nonstop hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Not this year, this year is different.
 
This year, I am at home, scurrying around in a different kind of way- going to the grocery store, cleaning up the house, looking for recipes and making plans. The guests are coming to us. And while the chaos of our own the travel is not there; the level of frantic DOing remains.
 
In addition to all this, I spend most of last weekend in bed. I wasn’t feeling well. Instead of pushing through it, (like I always do because hello, there are things to be done) I surrendered to my body. It was telling me I needed rest, to stay in bed and everything else could wait.
 
As you can imagine, that is not easy for me.
 
It was weird.
 
I felt wildly unproductive.
 
My to-do list kept scrolling through my brain.
 
My bed became a magnet, I couldn’t have moved if I tried.
 
After a little while, I realized how deeply relaxing it was and how desperately I needed to just lay there and do nothing.
 
The obvious benefit, my sickness never got worse, but the more subtle benefit was the reminder that I need to make more time to slow down. When we get so busy running around doing what we think is important, it’s easy to forget it’s not the food or the traditions or the specific people, but what is happening in this present moment that is always most important.
 
Something told me maybe you need these reminders today too?
 
Thank-FULLy yours, 
Kacey

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Photo by Valeriia Bugaiova on Unsplash

This year there seems to be quite a controversy surrounding the holidays. It all started when Starbucks brought back the Pumpkin Spice Latte at the end of August. Here in Phoenix, where at the time the temperatures were still hovering around 104-108, it was hardly the cozy sweater weather we usually associate with a “PSL”. But of course, the weather and date on the calendar would not deter people from their favorite seasonal beverage.
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The “early” availability of the PSL seems to have set off a domino effect for all this year’s holidays. Christmas music began playing on radio stations the day after Halloween (much to some people’s delight and for others, well, not so much). Facebook friends have already started posting pictures of their Christmas trees. My neighbors are starting to put lights on their houses.

Some Americans have said they feel like we are skipping Thanksgiving. But Thanksgiving is “late” this year, falling on the 28th, so does that mean we have less time? Maybe getting started now isn’t such a bad idea.  

We have these preconceived notions in our head, who knows how they got there or why we feel so passionately about defending them, about the “right” and the “wrong” time to begin celebrating. It’s kind of silly when you think about it, in such simple terms.

The one thing that stands out to me is the joy people find in the holidays. Whether it is a favorite drink, beloved decoration, special song or family recipe, these things make people really, really happy. And if it makes you joy-FULL then why does it matter what day of the year you do it?

Over the years I have challenged my readers to look for the word “joy”, take a picture and post it on social media as a reminder to find joy during your busy day. This year let’s expand the challenge and take a picture of anything that brings you joy throughout your day. Post your picture with the hashtag #joychallenge2019 and tag me so we can spread joy on social media.
 
Joy-FULLy yours, 
Kacey

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Photo by Preslie Hirsch on Unsplash

My daughter was three months old to the day when I dropped her off at the daycare for the first time. She smiled toothlessly at me as I left her in the hands of Miss Monica. I took a mental snapshot of her chubby cheeks, downy blond hair and emerging personality. I had evaluated many daycares but as I walked away, the realization dawned on me that I didn’t REALLY know Miss Monica.

I suddenly had an urgent need to know if she was right-handed or left-handed? What was her favorite movie? Did she have any cavities? How about her go-to karaoke song? In my over-tired, slightly anxious and story-filled mind, these all seemed like relevant pieces of information I should know about the person watching my precious child.  But I had to get to work, so I pushed these questions aside along with the voice in my head telling me I was a terrible mother for leaving my little girl with a complete stranger.

I started the car, knowing I had only a seven-minute drive to switch gears from mommy mode to worker mode. All my energy not devoted to driving went towards camouflaging my grief over leaving Riley for the first time. I blinked back tears in hopes of preserving my mascara and took deep breaths to calm my flushed cheeks.

After what seemed like the blink of an eye, I was sitting in the office parking lot putting on a fresh coat of lipstick.  A glance in the rear-view mirror reassured me that I had it all together on the outside, even if my insides were faltering.

Armed with my computer bag, purse, jacket and two framed photos of Riley, I walked towards the door. My hand hovered over the handle. I filled my lungs, straightened my shoulders and walked in.

The familiar smell of carpet, stale air and coffee brewing filled the unchanged lobby—unlike my house that smelled like baby powder, shampoo and diapers. Conversations floated over the cubicle walls. The sing-song cadence of nursery rhymes replaced by the soft murmur of customers being helped. Co-workers enthusiastically welcomed me back and obliged when I practically shoved my photos in their faces. My chair squeaked in its familiar way and, even though someone had fiddled with the height, it was familiar. It was my chair, my desk, computer, all the way I had left it.

I knew I hadn’t been there in over 90 days, but it felt like no time had passed at all.

Everything was the same, except me.

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This is an excerpt from my book on what I felt heading back to work on that first day. I’ve written many blogs about going back to work after baby, but it remains one of the most stressful and emotional times in a new mom’s life. 

The facts are that seven out of ten mothers with children under the age of 18 participate in the workforce. Three out of four are employed full time. While this is a victory for the generations before us that fought so hard for a woman’s right to have a career and a family, many women fall into bed every night exhausted and feeling guilty for not doing either particularly well. The women who fought to get us into this position never could have predicted how hard it would be to integrate these two worlds.

Studies have also shown there are great benefits to children who have working moms including being strong leaders, earning more money and being more flexible and independent.

But all the studies in the world don’t help when your worried about your child and your coworkers or when you are trying to figure out how to keep the house clean, make meals and find enough time for sleep. It’s an adjustment, but it is possible, even if it doesn’t seem like it in the moment.

I could write about this for days, but here are three tips for heading back to work:

• Have a conversation with your spouse/co-parent. You should both be on the same page not only with who is doing pick up and drop off, but who will pick up if the little one gets sick. You should also talk about chores around the house – who is going to do the laundry? Dishwasher? Clean the bathrooms? Make dinner? I know it seems like a silly conversation but can help avoid a lot of drama later on.
• Have a conversation with your boss. What are their expectations of you as you come back? Do you have the option of easing back into a forty-hour week? Do you have to work a standard 9 to 5 or is their flexibility to work off hours or from home? Have you shared if you will be pumping throughout the day? Is there a designated room or do you need accommodations? Don’t be nervous about asking for what you need, your boss will be so happy you are back, they will likely assist in any way they can.
• Know that Enough is Enough. Chances are you will have a to-do list a mile long and whether it is filled with work projects or life projects, you will never cross everything off the list in one day. You must to know that whatever you completed in that day was enough. We are accustomed to giving 110% and if we don’t, we feel like we fall short. Giving 110% is not mathematically possible, so don’t feel guilty. Do what you can do and know it is enough.

The one thing that all working moms need, on their first day or their five hundredth day, is support.

None of us are alone in this journey.

You may feel like you are the only one, but I can guarantee you, you’re not.

I’m cheering you on, and so are millions of other working moms.

You’ve got this!
 
Heart-FULLy yours, 
Kacey
p.s. I’m working on a survival kit for moms heading back to work! I’ll have more information in the coming weeks, but if you want to be the first to hear about it, message me and I’ll put you on the list to be the first to know!

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Photo by Damir Kopezhanov on Unsplash

I have written about expectations numerous times and yet they continue to come up. They are deeply embedded in our everyday lives and there is always another layer to deconstruct. In this post, I want to share some discussions I’ve had recently with parents. Their challenges are common, yet they did not realize how their expectations where influencing their feelings.
 
First, I spoke to a mom who was stuck in her definition of what a Mom should do. She was allowing the thought, “Moms don’t do that”, hold her back from doing things she really enjoyed like working out, dancing and spending time with her friends. She was carrying around a definition of Mom behavior without questioning it. I asked her “Where did this definition come from? Why do you think this? Is it true?” When she thought through the questions she couldn’t explain where these thoughts had come from. When she challenged if they were true, she realized they were not. Once she saw things from a different perspective, she released the definition holding her back and gave herself permission to start doing things she loved. As we were talking, I reminded her - being a mom doesn’t change who are, it strengthens who you’ve always been. 
 
Expectations are subtle, embedded deep within our thoughts, as if accepted through osmosis and without question.
 
In my second conversation, my friend shared, “Dinner time is so hard. Each night I struggle to get my boys (4 and 2) to eat at the table. It’s so stressful.” I can totally relate. Making a meal everyone will eat at the end of the long day often seems like an insurmountable task. Pile on top of that the expectation of (1) eating together, (2) at the table, (3) between the hours of 5:00 – 8:00, (4) with a protein, vegetable and starch on the plate. Four unspoken “rules” of dinner in one simple sentence. Experts will tell you it’s important to sit at the table to build strong family bonds. Parents will boast on social media how many times a week their family eats dinner together. Sitting at the table has become an unspoken measurement of parenting success. When I shared that my family rarely sits down at the table together during the week, I could hear the relief in her voice. I explained how years ago I realized our ever-changing activity and work schedules made sitting down to dinner every night impossible. We still make time to talk about our day, connect and have conversations with each other, it’s just not around the table. Releasing the expectation (eating at the table) and focusing on the intention (connecting with each other), allowed me to accept guilt-free that our dinner time didn’t look like other families.
 
A few days after I had this conversation about the dinner table, my co-workers brought up their struggles of getting their young kids to eat dinner. Eating the food on their plate, not snacking before (or after) dinner and sitting at the table were all common challenges with those in the discussion. I remembered having those same struggles with my own kids but now I could see the child was not fitting into the expectation of the parent. The friction of how the parent thought things should be versus how the child was behaving was the cause of the struggle.
 
I started thinking about my sister who is a new mom. We were recently talking about how fast 2 hours can go by and then its time for the baby to eat again. It’s been a while since I’ve had a newborn, but she’s exactly right, babies eat every 2-3 hours. I remember how excited I was when my kids ate enough to make it through the night, even if it was only a five hour stretch. As they grow into toddler-hood, we feed them a meal with a snack in between, maintaining that schedule of eating something every 2-3 hours. This pattern continues until we decide to put our kids to our schedule, eating bigger meals and going longer stretches in between. When they start to rebel, we are confused by their sudden change in behavior around food. But what if they are on to something? What if we encouraged our kids to listen to their bodies and eat when they are hungry? What if we all listened to our body, ate when we were hungry and stopped when we felt full?  
 
Until you really stop to think about some of these things, you don’t realize how embedded our expectations are and how they influence so many pieces of our lives. They can cause us to get stressed out and lose our perspective on what might really be important. It is in these times, we need to pause, take a step back and think about why it is we think this way. Is this expectation realistic for where I am at today? Is this inline with my family or do we need to create our own “normal” based on our personalities and what works for us?
 
Heart-FULLy yours, 
Kacey

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