:::One mum, one family, one day at a time!!! :::

“You’ve developed the strength of a draft horse while holding onto the delicacy of a daffodil …

 you are the mother, advocate, protector of a child, a wife and a hero in your world. 

And no matter how often you break down, 

always hold unto that little part of you which says;

   “No, you´re not done yet; get back up!”

 

 

Every working or schooling mum probably feels the same thing; time-pressured, exhausted, overworked, fatigued, sometimes frustrated and even helpless. She gets back home, lies on a couch, closes her eyes and tries to take a nap. But in the darkness of her eyes all she reads are stuffs that have to be taken care of.  Her mind tells her this and that have to be done, but her body, being trapped in fatigue says the opposite and, after a while, she realizes she has spent more of her time figuring out how she will do those things, rather than actually doing them.

There sometimes isn’t enough time in a day to get everything done to the point where life gets a little chaotic. We work hard to get things done, yet our week piles up on us.

We all get a great deal of satisfaction looking after our homes; taking care of errands, being present at kids’ activities, spending time with our partner, doing the tidying till we see the end results.  But sometimes, for many of us mothers, with all the efforts, the reality is that by the end of the week, we’re stuck in a domestic loop of cleaning, washing, dusting, mopping, and ironing because of our tight schedule at work or school. We worry about our houses being clean when visitors call, and what others think of us if our houses aren’t spotless, but at the same time have a bunch of notes to go through maybe for a presentation or an exam for the next day, and that makes us feel guilty and stressed. Even when we succeed in squeezing out time to do the tidying, the worries about how to make out time to spend with our children and partner start flowing in.

Sometimes the never ending duties of motherhood become so exhausting that we begin to feel discouraged about life.

 I decided to write on this this week, not to tell you how easier things will get, but to say that it´s normal for things to be that way. It can sometimes be very reassuring to know that you are not the only mother in the world who feels overwhelmed with life and constantly has a pile of laundry overflowing the laundry basket.

I too and many other mothers go through all these, but these are some things I learned which help me a whole lot today, which could be of great help to you too.

• Do as much as you possibly can the night before. Set out clothes for the next day — both for yourself and for your children. Pack lunches if possible. 
•   No matter how tired you could be, before going to sleep, call your day successful after drawing a plan for the next day. This helps a whole lot in organization. On this plan, ask yourself questions like 1-what appointments do I have for the next day? (This will also help in avoiding missed appointments), 2-what do I plan to serve for my family for Lunch? Do I have everything I need at home? The next day try to stay focused on the things you had set up for the day and I bet you days for which you had no plan would be the worse days of your week.  
•   Try to Wake up half an hour before your children do. This will allow you arrange one or two things and get dressed before they wake up. Once they wake up, you’ll feel less hurried because you’ll be able to focus your attention on them.
•     Try to set extra goals for yourself every day. Apart from your usual daily routines, try to do something extra like cleaning a room, or doing the laundry or ironing. These are things which many other women set aside for their weekends. But I prefer to do these during the week because I love having my weekends free. My weekends are meant for rest and to spend quality time with my family or to do something for myself. If you set your weekend aside for tidying and laundering, you´ll hardly have time in the whole month for yourself. You´ll be spending all your days doing one stressful thing or the other which will only get you exhausted, tensed and maybe aggressive.

In my opinion, it isn’t how good we are at multitasking that matters, but how best we can manage our time. Mother Teresa said;

” it’s not how much you do, but how much love you put into the doing that matters”. 

Much love to all the working and studying mothers!!!!!:::

Joyce Ashime.