Self Care

 Self Care has never been a thing that I am good at doing.  Balance and single mama hood don't really go together. Pre Pandemic we had a parent support group  I had zumba class, we had play dates and coffee dates.  Then everything shut down and here we are.  I work as a home heath care aid which I love. It is hard work and then I come home to smaller humans. It means that 24/7 I am in charge of other people. With homeschooling there is an added layer of need.  

Trying not to feel burned out is hard. There isn't anything to look forward to no vacations, no holidays, no get togethers. There is just more of this day in and out.  

So attempting to build something new 

Every morning I have my coffee and listen to music and then do yoga. Sometimes kids join me other times they are still asleep.  

I am working on adding strength training in and zumbia using youtube. 

then after lunch I take mama time. I have a 2 hour nap. It feels very selfish and also sooo needed. It was going to be a break  from kids but every day I end up falling asleep. I set the alarm in the kids room on the Alex they can have screen time or audio books or whatever.

I wake up and then I take a walk usally by myself. Blast my music do a loop of the neighborhood.   

There are more little bits that need to be added in Slowly going to fill our days with moments. 

Tea in the evening with cookies and reading a book out loud.  Drawing, Gratitude journaling, writing in general. counseling, keeping a planner and habit tracker. Making sure getting enough water and steps in. Having fun things we do together that make us laugh. Dance parties, game nights. 

Slowly. bit by bit. 

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What do you do for self care?  What helps you keep from getting burned out?

School has been a struggle for one of my small people. Struggling with being told what to do and so much screaming and yelling and name calling. Mama is done.

We did go see some goats and played at the park a bit this week.  They have fallen for goats. There was a request for there to be "more goats in our life"  Which is the goal one day our own place with room to have things like goats and chickens. 

We got out to our favorite arboretum  and took some "school" pictures 

1st Grade

3rd Grade

Class Photo 

our mood this week 

someone was not a fan of picture taking but the light was so lovely and I love the way this barn looks as a backdrop. 

We saw this amazing dragonfly before an emo melt down in which we had to abandon our plans and leave.

Today we tried again it went slightly better. Only slightly.  We managed to walk and look at some leave and bark. We touched all the types of pine trees and tried to figure out which ones would make the best bed like the children in Boxcar children book. They talked about needle shape, how they were clustered together, how pointy they were.  

Then we stopped at the pond had a snack read poems about fall and harvest and a bit of Zen Shorts.  

I thought that it was so great and lovely then the meltdown queen decided she hated everything and everyone. So all plans of sketching and writing our own poems got abandoned. 

I'm honestly not sure what to do with her.  More structure more rewards more OT added into the day. It is overwhelming and yet I guess I'm glad that we are homeschooling where its OK that things are chaos and we haven't found the best way we can keep trying and adjusting. It gets to be all about meeting them where they are just takes a whole lot more research for me to figure out how to do that.