Blog On

You should start a blog. I have heard that line a thousand times. Then tons of questions flood my mind. What should I write ? Where do I start? What format do I like? Should I try to find a template? Is it ok to write a blog that is just like every other one I read?

I guess I will never know until I try.

So I have titled my blog Go to Time Out. Time out is a familiar parenting technique. If you have kids or have ever stumbled across the show Super Nanny, you know what I am talking about. I have often believed that I should go to time out. I do not want to sit on a little chair for the number of moments that equals my age. What I am envisioning is more like Calgon taking me away for a peaceful time.

I am not sure that I really understood needing a moment, an hour, a day away from my normal life before I became a mother. I also did not know how much brain and body power it would take to manage a full –time job and family.

So why does the phrase time out come to mind when I think I need to take a break? We tell our children to go to time out as a form of discipline. The operative word in that sentence is tell. As mothers we often need to be told to take a break. When I think I am about to snap and I am right on the verge of a class one, core melt down I do not have the sense to put myself in time out. Often my husband steps in and tells me to go. So I have to silence the voice of mommy guilt, the thoughts of work and home tasks that might be left incomplete for just a bit longer and let go.

So the next time you just cannot take it anymore, take a deep breath and go to time out…..

A New Day of a New Year

Today is the first day back to work and school for many of us. As I tossed and turned in bed last night I had that anxious feeling I get every time I know that I MUST get up on time the next day. So, my alarm was met by grown and growl.

My house has returned to its quiet daily state. I have returned to what I was working on two weeks ago and life seems to be well pretty much the same as it was last year. Every year I enter the holiday season thinking, this will be the year that is less hectic. This will be the year I do not have this anti-climax feeling that stays with me well into the new year. Well the holiday season of 2010 into 2011 is not that year. I pretty much feel the same way I always do.

As a parent of school age children it feels like years are often measured by the school calendar. We are now about half way through the school year. That means we are that much closer to having to figure out what the summer holds for the kids. Soon I begin the agonizing coordination of summer camps and activities. So I guess it often feels like life is so filled with activities that we move swiftly through without coming up for air. I am not a resolution person. I do not want to say that I will make a change and then be disappointed in myself when I do not follow through. So today I will just say that I hope this year and in many more to come I will take the time once in awhile to slow down, dance, sing, just breath and live in the moment just a few more times.