Mom Guilt

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Today I want to talk about mom guilt. When I hear mom guilt, a lot of times it’s when moms feel guilty about going back to work after having a baby. Often times, moms need to work in addition to their husband to help support the family. Some women are entrepreneurs or choose to work a corporate job. None of this means they love their babies any less and it doesn’t make it easy to go back to work at all. I don’t think moms need to feel guilty about working, it’s either they work when they have kids or their full time job is being a mom to their children. Either choice has it’s own challenges and there is definitely no reason to feel guilty.

I never hear the term dad guilt, ever! Have you? It’s amazing all this pressure moms put upon themselves to do the majority of child rearing when in the modern world both parents need to be equally responsible for raising the children. Most of us are brought up a certain way in that mom took on most of the child caring. We are maternal after all but in this busy world it’s important for moms to get support from dads in raising the kids. It’s almost ingrained in our brains that moms do it all but it’s better for everyone when mommy and daddy bring up the kids.

 

 

baby showers and bffs

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I hosted a baby shower today, for my bff of over 16 years! We are both pregnant at the same time which is amazing! She is due about a month before me. I’m on my second baby and this is her first. I love that we are expecting together and can share this experience together.

A team of us put this shower together, no way I could manage this all myself and so many people love our friend they wanted to pitch in and help with everything from decorations to games, food and organizing the event.

I think it’s so important to come together and celebrate happy occasions. It’s a wonderful part of being human and having connections with people in your life. What a gift to be able to celebrate people you love!

Of course I’ll talk about food here and mention what was served. For drinks a giant glass container of water with lemon slices and ice, center stage for the beverages to remind everyone to hydrate! Also served Prosecco with orange juice, cranberry juice with ginger ale-favorite drink of the mommy to be. Veggie and turkey wraps platter, pizza roll platter, veggie tray, grapes and cubed honeydew melon. Homemade mini meatballs in the Instapot on slow cooker setting with store bought pasta sauce and rolls. I made this recipe: https://www.vitacost.com/blog/cooking-recipe/gluten-free-2/slow-cooker-italian-meatballs-with-tomato-sauce.html

For dessert, I ordered cupcakes from Whole Foods. They have an outstanding bakery and use higher quality ingredients than Publix and all natural food coloring for cupcake frosting instead of chemical food dyes. No way I was going to serve our mommy to be and guests chemical food dye cupcakes.

Pregnancy and Exercise

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Pregnancy and exercise… It is important to stay physically active before you become pregnant, our human bodies are designed to move. Of course there are exceptions to that but today we are talking about if you are in good condition and able to exercise it’s important that you do stay active especially if you have a desk job.

Pregnancy during exercise is good for both baby and momma. It helps with digestion, blood flow and keeping blood pressure in check and helping maintain blood sugar levels.In the first trimester, I was so tired that I often napped during my regular workout time or slept in and didn’t workout in the morning. Those set of weeks I missed many workouts but chasing my toddler or going for walks was all I could manage. In the second trimester, my energy is good on somedays and other days I feel super sleepy. I’m able to wake up earlier than the first trimester so that’s the best time to get in a workout and mostly they are 20-30 minute sessions using beachbody on demand. The prenatal workouts are really good and I also like the selection of yoga workouts and meditation. My current goal is to workout 3 days a week. I’m hoping to increase that but at the moment that is all I can manage and sometimes I can’t even make it to 3 workouts in a week. I’ve missed weight training so I’m doing the 2nd trimester workouts that incorporate dumbbells and resistance loops which help me feel stronger and maintaining a little bit of toning :).

Gratitude

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Expressing gratitude for what you have or desire is really important.  It creates an abundant mindset over a mindset of lack which is easy to fall into. Being grateful for what you have attracts more of what you want in life. Expressing gratitude for what you desire will help it come to fruition sooner, that doesn’t mean that things fall into your lap by any means. What does happen is your brain starts to think of ways to make this option a possibility and then thinks of ways to take action. The key is to allow your brain these pro-active thoughts and take action!

For me, I find the best way to express gratitude is to write in a notebook in the quiet time I have in the morning which means waking up before everyone else in the house. This doesn’t happen every day, sometimes I skip a day or write in my notebook a little while later. I write what I’m grateful for in the moment, the health and well being of my family. I’m also writing lately gratitude for this happy, healthy baby in my belly that she is born full term and delivered in a natural and empowering birth. Her birth is a few months away but I’m setting up my mindset for a positive birthing experience and for her to be born full term and healthy. Our first daughter was born a month early to our surprise and thankfully was very healthy just a little bit small but she was mighty from the start.

What are you grateful for?

Do you keep a journal and write it down daily?

Parenting

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Parenting is the most amazing gift! I’ll start there, I can’t imagine not being a parent, I never thought I would be a mom growing up, I was so insecure I couldn’t imagine raising another human being. After meeting then marrying my husband I really wanted to become a mom a few years in. Now our first daughter is almost 3 and we have another baby girl on the way!

There are so many challenges that come up, stay home to raise your babies, go back to work, hire help, when to send them to school. I’ve found along the way researching and talking to other parents, discussing with hubby of course, asking family members for advice and ultimately prayer and having faith we know what’s best for our family. I find myself worrying a lot and then figuring out the best path and often having to make adjustments along the way. Parenting is so humbling! There is no perfection in this and that is hard for a lifetime perfectionist. So it’s been a learning curve but much needed.

When the focus is doing right by your child, you’re doing the best that you can and that’s enough!