Each night I lay in bed… or flop into bed… hoping to get a couple hours before the first kid wakes. As I lay there – instead of falling asleep, I find my mind it starts to assess the day.  I think about how I should have done this better or I shouldn’t have done that.

Does this sound like you?

It isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it doesn’t send you into “MOM GUILT” and instead it allows you to see things from their eyes.

Here is what I mean; I realized I am a “NO MOM” during my bedtime assessment.

The Mom who ran a tight ship and had really well behaving kids ALL THE TIME was my plan before I actually had any kids (HAHAHA- oh so young and naïve).  So naturally I was saying “NO” to them.  No way was I going to be saying, “yes” to Funny Buns and Candy…  I was not going to be saying “yes” to sugary cereal and juice.  I was gonna lay the law down right from the start.

This one day, I was home feeling a bad case of the “grumpies” [We could blame it on the weather, lack of sleep, kids trapped inside for what felt like an eternity … the list goes on.] It was just a rough day – ALL DAY. That night I got in bed and started thinking… what the heck is going on here?  Why is everyone so difficult?  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was not being very fun and that my kids were actually mirroring me – the NO MOM! More times than not, I was saying NO before they even finished asking. Why was I being so difficult!? I disguised my NO sometimes with “maybe later” … I went from running a tight ship to just being tight.

I needed to LIGHTEN UP!!!

I don’t remember being a grump before then. I wanted to be the fun mom, who laughed and enjoyed the kids.  Now I see it was a part of my survival to be firm but I think it got carried away into a habit.  A habit that was not the image I had painted me to be.  Saying NO and being grumpy was not the best tactic because it was just creating grumpy kids.

So the next morning and days following I vowed to be lighter…

“Mom can we stop in the park today?”

“Yes lets have our lunch there!”

Of course I still say no to things… I am just more mindful.  I had become like a robot – not being fully present in the madness because it’s hard.  If we are being honest… Kids are hard.  The fighting and screaming and holy bananas they are soooo messy! So to survive, I became ridged.

Not all days are smooth sailing here… I am still at times frustrated and tired and want to shut down.  But now I am more aware of the “no mom”defense and how being LIGHTER has a much better effect on the flow.