The New Year’s Resolution for Every Mom

It is the year-end already! It is the time when most of us make resolutions for the coming brand New Year. I have one resolution that should be at the top of every mom’s list.

Taking time for myself .

Being a mom is always stressful. Supporting a family and a child is demanding and difficult and balancing your working hours makes it so stressful all the time. Your lives are busier than ever. Now, to make it even tougher we have raised our expectation as parents. We constantly strive to help our children become good people, successful and make them socially and emotionally intelligent.

In this brand new year 2013, I resolve to make sure to keep some time to care for myself. I know, you would say, who has the time. However, taking a little time everyday to care for you – even if it is just 5 minutes will help. You get to stop and catch your breath. This will be the greatest gift you will ever gift yourself and believe me or not, it will be an even greater gift to your child. You will feel calmer, happier and less reactive. This tiny little break will make you more present, attentive and patient parent.

Some of the greatest stress busters I feel are getting to yoga, brisk walking and meditation and even relaxation exercises. As for me, I love to walk and I go for a brisk walk everyday for 15 minutes while DS is at school.

I got the idea while reading about a Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön. Maitri, as they say, is unconditional friendliness towards oneself. The word unconditional friendliness itself makes you feel good. We parents always love to make it hard on ourselves and feel we fall short as parents, partners and people.

In a bid to make the world a better place for my child I pledge to start with myself and make me kinder, gentler and unconditionally friendly to myself.

Happy New Year!

Meal Time = Emotional War

I am busy in an emotional war started by my DS. Yes! you guessed it right MEAL TIME EMOTIONAL ATTYACHAR (Hindi for Torture)
This has resulted in immense damage to my energy and definitely my mood.

Ways DS Made My Marriage Better

The world is filled with 2 kinds of people - This is equally true for parents as well. One group keeps regaling you with horrors of parenting at every chance they get. They tell you about the rising cost of vaccines, diapers, PediaSure and tuition fees. They keep complaining about how they never get a couple time or “Me” time anymore.

On the other hand are parents who tell you how perfect their child is! They keep telling you how they have never felt closer to their spouse. They even keep on telling you why every couple should have more kids. They always keep talking about how happy they are all the time and how they find little things rewarding.

1.      Becoming a FAMILY

As for me, I am a mixture of both these kind, having DS actually changed my life. It made my marriage better. He gave a stronger sense of being a “family.” When we were “just married and without DS, life seemed like we were still dating. Now we live together and keep remind the other about whose turn it is to manage DS. We earn, spent and then we keep the extra money. There are many things that we still enjoy doing on our own. All these felt so good and made us feel that we were dating in a serious way.

The moment we learnt, we were pregnant, life changed. We were concerned about the money, how to earn more and save more. The whole pregnancy we kept talking about what values we want in our child and we still argue on that. We kept weaving new dreams of the child and our family. The best part was DH was getting more concerned; he kept tagging me wherever I would go and this till goes on. My difficult pregnancy made me more patients and taught me to depend on my DH, as I did never before. It taught him that I need him in every other ways.

The bad part was we officially stopped to just being the children to our parents as soon as the baby arrived. But then again the good part was we made our set of rules, our own goals, and our own path to victory.

2.      Becoming better resource managers

We did start talking about money more than before, but the baby’s arrival reminded us that our health insurance should always be in good shape and we have proper savings for every sort of emergencies. We discussed every purchase we did and.

With the passing of every day, we become experts at time management, since as the baby grew he was demanding more in every sense of the word. Our need to sleep, eat and even taking a bath was new exercise to display our creativity and magic. Then again, squeezing in the ‘ME’ time and ‘US’ time was very difficult but we needed it to maintain our sanity and love for each other. Today we already have routines and things work out automatically.

3.      We became a stronger team

My DH helps me a lot while caring for our DS, even though I stay at home. I in turn plan well to stay within our budget and try to have some savings each month. We keep talking to other parents about how they are dealing with their child and have little decisions on handling parenting issues. We talk about disciplining our child, setting our limitations, and our expectations. We ensure that we get involved with DS equally and take charge when the other one gets slack.

4.      We started being more health-conscious

We want to be there for our DS every time and because of our desire we wanted to be healthy, we have brought many changes in our living. We are skipping on sodas and have stopped indulging in junk food. We indulge more in vegetables and keenly aware that if one of us gets sick, it does not infect the whole family. We are still in the process of learning more about each other.

In the end, it is up to the couple whether a child will make or break their marriage. I am just thankful that my DH who has been there throughout celebrating the challenges of parenthood and make our partnership stronger with each passing day. We have decided that as a team our home should have a learning environment and that we end up being far less stressed and enjoy our company with DS.