A few years back, maybe five, a dear friend introduced a new phrase into my life: Be gentle with yourself. I have to admit that at the time I really didn't know what the hell she meant. Be gentle with myself? Had she seen my life? Did she even know me at all?! I was too busy living fast and hard! No, not the drugs, sex, and rock & roll lifestyle. It was more the breastfeeding, babies, and playdates kind of life back then. Yeah, sure we stayed up all night, but I can assure you there was very little sex involved, and all the rocking was done in a chair.
Gentle. Pfft. I was too busy maintaining the perception of being a perfect parent. And that, my friends, was exhausting. There is no time for being polite to yourself when your house of cards might crumble at any given moment, forget gentle.
Here's the thing about having babies: It rocks your world. On. Every. Single. Level.
Everything you knew about life - mentally, physically, spiritually - changes. Not in an instant like the movies and fairytales say, it's more of a slow evolution. Through trial and error of desperately holding onto your pre-baby life, you learn that things are not ever going to be the same. For example, you learn that you can do very well on surprisingly little sleep. You learn that going out and partying until 4am creates a hangover that might actually KILL you. You learn that miracles exist every time your baby smiles. Oh yes and this, you learn there is no such thing as a perfect parent. Eventually.
The perfect parent is a myth parenting magazines and manufacturers have created to sell you new things. Don't get me wrong, some of those things are really, really great. But, none of them will make you a perfect parent. Not even the wipe warmer, I know it seems like something a perfect parent would use, but I have yet to meet a parent who has purchased one and actually used it.
Now, granted, I am a little slow, but it took me years to figure this out. In fact, I'm still trying to figure it out because I still want to believe the perfect parent exists. That I can somehow capture the "perfect parent essence" by finding the right book or piece of advice or service that will make everything fall into place. Then again, I still kind of believe in unicorns too.
I guess my point is this. Please do be gentle with yourself, because if you wait to be kind to yourself until everything lines up just so, it would be like waiting your whole life for a pink unicorn to show up on your front porch. And no matter how much we want to believe this could happen, I think we can all agree that it would be a tragic way to live.
Be gentle with yourselves my friends, because as Glennon Doyle says, we can do hard things.
My eating for the last 2 days follows. I hope you will notice the conspicuous decrease in sugar...and I hope you will not notice the lack of green juice. I'm trying friends. I'm trying. Also please play along with what I count as exercise...maybe someday, the real thing will show up, then again maybe a pink unicorn will magically appear on my doorstep too.
Sunday 4/7/13
Exercise: Sitting at my computer working on a presentation counts right?
Breakfast:
Water with cayenne pepper and lemon
1/2 pack of oatmeal
Mini tangerine
1.5 scrambled eggs
1 Grande, soy, 1.5 pump caramel macchiato
Lunch:
2 Turkey lettuce wraps
1 Apple
1 bag of popcorn (100 calorie pack)
Water
Dinner:
Chicken fajita nachos:
Chicken breast cooked in crockpot with various spices
Tortilla chips
Daiya chedder "cheese"
Lettuce
Tomato
Dessert:
Lemon Popsicle
Monday 4/8/13
Exercise: Working frantically on a presentation for school for 8 hours straight and then giving said presentation. That has to burn a good amount of calories.
Breakfast:
1/2C vanilla yogurt
1/4C GF Granola (granola has a lot of calories, 80 in just a 1/4 cup - weird)
1 Apple
Lunch:
Taco salad
Only 4 Tortilla chips (this feels kinda like a miracle to me.)
Snack:
Popcorn
Dinner:
Chicken breast with taco seasoning
Tortilla chips
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