Tag: self-care

TSM Book Club Book #20: The Ones We Fight For by Katie Golightly

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Started: May 6th
Finished: May 21st
TSM Rating 4/5

This was my first time reading a book on Kindle. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s convenient to have a book at the tip of my fingers and the highlighting on demands clutch. On the other hand, it’s more time on my phone, and the page numbering is a little weird.

That being said, I really enjoyed this book. It was a slow-burn, friends-to-lovers story about two imperfect people — Walker Hartrick and Talia Cohen — doing their best to survive after their worlds are flipped upside down. Walker has just lost his brother and sister-in-law in a drunk driving accident. This leaves him as the guardian of his five nieces and nephews.

For Talia, she is dealing with the one-two punch of finding out that she is infertile and her engagement ending. On top of that, her estranged father was responsible for Walker’s loss.

The beauty of this story is how believable and relatable both their journeys are. In some ways, Walker is the poster child of toxic masculinity’s belief that seeking help is a sign of weakness and the only way he can be any good to his family is to be “strong.” Even as his body is physically breaking down with panic attacks, he continues pushing to be there for his family.

In her own way, Talia is white-knuckling life as well. She comes to town to take over her father’s grocery store and throws herself into work. She also leans into being good to everyone else, including Walker and his family. Leaning into it helped her rediscover her self-worth and slowly heal from all that was ailing her.

When Talia and Walker come together, magic happens. They learn from each other. Give each other support and lift each other up. They help each other through, and both come out stronger on the other side.

I like that Golightly takes her time with the story and doesn’t rush through their progression, notably Walker’s. There are a lot of conclusions that he has to come to on his own. He wasn’t going to take specific steps until he was ready.

This book is filled with lots of little nuggets of wisdom. My favorite is this one:

Her mother always said “time is the wisest counselor of all.”

The Ones We Fight For, Chapter 23, page 198 (Kindle)

It’s a nice story, but be warned, it covers many heavy topics, including death, alcoholism, and infertility, all of which can be triggering for some.

Quiet is Never Quiet Enough

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C requested that we make gingerbread cookies after learning about them at school last week. I figured, sure, why not. I found a recipe, and J and I picked up the ingredients I didn’t already have in my spice cabinet. The suggestion of cookies was actually perfect as I decided we’d package them up and give them away to C’s bus drivers and his teachers as a “thank you”/Christmas gift. I love it when a plan comes together!

The boys and I combined and mixed the ingredients in the afternoon when C got home from school, then set the dough to chill. Fun fact that I did not know going into this: gingerbread dough needs to chill before the cookies can be cut.

Dough chilling, I make dinner, hubby comes home, we eat, and take a tubby. Then the boys and I head back to the kitchen to roll out the dough and bust out the cookie cutters. We make gingerbread men, gingerbread women, gingerbread kids, Santas, reindeer, ornaments, and candy canes. I pop the first batch in the oven, and the boys stare through the window to watch them bake. Another fun fact: although the dough needs to chill forever, the cookies back up in about ten minutes!

Once all the cookies are made and set out to cool, we head to bed. Around 2 AM, C wakes up. It takes about thirty minutes, but I get him back to sleep. I, however, am wide awake. I decide to be productive. I went across the hall into our junk room-turned-my-office to create labels for the cookie bags. I was still fussing with spacing and print alignment when my husband walked by and said, “There you are. I was wondering where you were.”

After he left for work, I decided that at 5 AM, with the kids still asleep, this would be the best opportunity to get my workout in alone. Usually, the boys wake up, follow me to the basement, and lay all over me when I do floor exercises.

I sneak into my bedroom because, of course, they are sleeping in there, change my clothes, then go down to the hall to our other bathroom to pee and put my shoes on. Guys, I promise you I made ZERO noise until I flushed the toilet on the other end of the house. Our house isn’t that big, but they shouldn’t have been able to hear the flush. Either way, I go down into the basement where, during COVID, A (my husband) went a little crazy filling it with gym equipment. I was just throwing my leg over the exercise bike seat when I heard it. Little, pounding footsteps going down the hall. J comes down the stairs and stops in front of the bike, and with sleepy eyes, he looks up at me and says, in a tone that doesn’t match his tired eyes, “Hi, Mommy!”

I laughed so hysterically that I thought I was going to cry. He reached his little arms up, and I had no choice but to scoop him up, soak up all that cute sleepy warmth, and snuggle my baby for 22 minutes as I rode the stationary bike. He wouldn’t let me put him down because he was scared. Of what? I have no idea. I finally convinced him that if he got down and handed me the remote control, he could watch anything he wanted on the television while I finished up.

I finished my ride, then proceeded to my floor exercise routine, which involved J trying to lay on me when I went down from a sit-up or sitting on my lap between sets. The whole time all I could think was: I should have just let it mellow…

A Mother’s Love Through Criticism…

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In my junior year of college, I came home at the end of the first semester exhausted. It had been a particularly trying semester, and finals week came with a snowstorm. Sufficed to say, I was happy to be home when it was all said and done. My mother, with ever the keen eye, looked at me and said, “You look unkempt. Here is some money. Go get your hair done.” Before taking the money (obviously), my response was, “I’m sorry I’ve been more focused on passing my finals than what my hair looks like. I thought that’s what you were sending me to school for.” While annoyed at the comment, I did appreciate her hooking me up with the cash for a bit of self-care.

My mother has been notorious for commenting on little things like this my whole life. She does it to my brothers too. I used to think it was just her nature until my girlfriends would share the perceived f’ed up stuff their moms would say to them too. In my teens and 20s, I resented her for it a little bit. Why couldn’t she be a little nicer? A little less brusk. Usually, these comments came when and about things I was already frustrated about or keenly aware of, so often, my reaction to them was less than pleasant.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that the comments aren’t from a place of malice or ill intent. It’s coming from a twisted Boomer place of love. I can’t totally blame this on being a Boomer because my paternal grandmother does the same thing. I generally brace myself before stopping by to see her. But I digress…

Since having my boys, I’ve come to appreciate her observations…that’s not 100% true. I only really appreciate it when she tells me I look tired because that is always followed up with, “Bring the boys by, and we’ll take them for the weekend.” This past weekend, for example, she took them home with her after Thanksgiving dinner and kept them for three days. When she does things like that, it’s kind of hard to stay mad at her for telling me I look like shit…

So remember, this holiday season when your mother is lobbing criticisms at you, she’s likely coming from a place of love. Also, remember that we can correct these behaviors with our own children, and these patterns need not be repeated with the next generation.

Chocolate and Wine Make Me Happy…and Might Lead to My Demise…

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Often in my life as a mom, I’ve found myself taking a few minutes after the dishes are done and before I dive into tubby time to take a deep breath. I also either inhale a chocolate bar or chug half a glass of wine. Whichever I choose depends on the kind of day I’ve had. Sometimes it’s both. It’s my slow descent toward either diabetes or alcoholism. Not really with alcoholism, but diabetes might be a real possibility…

Before mommyhood, I wasn’t a stress eater. I think that’s because the things that stressed me out were tasks. Tangible action items I could go about completing as long as I buckled down and did them. Attend a planning committee meeting? Check. Finish an article or research paper? Done. As long as I planned my time accordingly, I was good. Hell, I was kind of annoying. In college, I would finish papers a week before they were due; I was that good at time management.

Now, though? Time management is a foreign concept. You can’t “time manage” being a mom. No matter how hard you try. Get the kid to sleep by 8? Sure, if C doesn’t have to use the potty five times or if J will stop talking through the bedtime story. Get the house clean? Sure, J doesn’t insist that we watch the SAME EPISODE of Blippi for the 500th time.

There’s no more shutting the world out by blasting music and banging out a paper. There is no more on time or showing up early. If we do show up early, it’s 100% an accident. Heck, there are no more running quick errands. Now that I’m home with J, every time we have to leave the house, he wants to know where we’re going and what we’re going there for. The only place that doesn’t require a detailed explanation is the library.

As moms, we all have to find our coping mechanisms to help keep our sanity when all feels lost, and the kids won’t stop screaming for five minutes so we can have a complete, uninterrupted thought. Speaking of uninterrupted thoughts…it has taken me FOUR days just to write this short little post. In the time since I started writing this post, I’ve eaten three Snickers bars (two full-sized, one snack size), Gummy bears (chocolate is not my only sugar-based vice), and five Lindt milk chocolate balls. Two of those Lindt balls were consumed in the last twenty minutes while I multitasked signing up for a warranty on a device, checking for an update on my community post about my broken printer, starting Home on one tablet, and Pinkfong and Baby Shark’s Space Adventure on another, then turning off both tablets ad getting the boys in the tub.

If I weren’t already exhausted and didn’t have to finish tubby and get them to bed, I might go back to the kitchen for a glass of wine… Alas, the bottle will stay corked until Thursday, when our families descend for Thanksgiving. That doesn’t mean I can’t have one more Lindt ball, right? Sign me up for the insulin shots now, people!

Nap Time Procrastination

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Ah, nap time. That time of day when the house is quiet, and you can finally hear yourself think for the first time since 5AM when your beautiful child first started wailing for your attention. If you’re lucky, this means you have roughly two hours to get things done around the house that you can’t do while the little one is awake because you don’t have eight arms. (I would take two extra arms over this belly that won’t go away any day. Amirite, Ladies!)

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do first. Do you mop that kitchen floor that, quite frankly, you can’t remember the last time you did it? Do you make lunch for the week? Do you clear out the spare bedroom that has turned into a junk room filled with so much crap that you just keep the door closed and pretend it doesn’t exist? OR, do you lay on the couch and binge-watch whatever Netflix show you’ve been meaning to watch for months, but between work and everything else, you haven’t found the time?

As we are now in the age of self-care, sometimes a little Netflix and chill is what you need. Sometimes a nap is what you need — the little dude isn’t the only one who needs to recharge his batteries! So you make a deal with yourself: nap hour one, you relax; nap hour two, you cross off one of the many items on your To Do list. You take some time to yourself and curl up on the couch with the remote or maybe that book you’ve been carrying for two months and haven’t made it even halfway through, and you relax. You relax so much that you lose track of time, and hour one bleeds into hour two, and as soon as you get up to tackle that chore, your sweet angel starts crying or giggling or, like my angel, says, “Uh oh.”

That’s when you know you’re screwed, and the thing you meant to do will now be infinitely hard to get done because, as established earlier, you don’t have extra arms — God, I really wish I had a few extra arms!