I see mom's every day struggling to be the best mom they can possibly be,  including myself.  Recently I have witnessed some awful instances of mothers not being their best.  This is quite shocking to me because I have huge mom guilt if I don't do enough crafting or if I allow my children to play on the iPad.  Then there is a side of the real world that I actually never really put a lot of thought into.

There is mom's who don't care.  There is women on the street having babies on drugs and they don't think anything of it.  How can this be?  How can this even be a reality.  These babies are struggling from the moment they enter the world.  Being addicted to drugs, struggling with major health issues, and even just being alone.  There are children being abused, neglected, and not loved.  Thankfully there is a lot of mother's in the world willing to step up.

Mom guilt is such a real thing.  Especially in this day and age of the lovely world of social media.  Many of us put so much pressure on ourselves, to be the best.  I know this first hand.  My expectations of myself are huge.  I want my kids to be healthy, happy, and educated.  I definitely consider myself a controlling mama.  One who wants to protect her children from many things in this world.  Am I perfect?  NO! but do I try YES!

My family pointed out the other day that they see how hard I try as a mother and am immersed in my children.  They truly are my life.  I do sometimes notice that I have definitely lost a lot of "me" however I wouldn't have it any other way.  For me I have made this choice.  I made the choice to have 3 beautiful children.  I made the choice to be at home with them.  I made the choice to homeschool them.  I want the absolute best for them.

So when the time comes one day when they are older I will have all the time in the world for "me".  So mom bun and leggings it is.  Finding time to simply get my hair done now is a lot more of a challenge.  Don't get me wrong my husband is incredible and would drop everything to give me as much "me" time as I needed.  However let's face it, there is only so many hours in a day.  The last thing I can see myself doing is taking time in the evening for myself when I'm so very exhausted.



   I always point out to mom's who are overwhelmed and struggling to start with something simple.  I have to take reminders from my husband.  Sometimes when we are having a difficult day getting out the door I just have to realize that's ok.  Slow down.  Or when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes we just have to reset it and have a bubble bath.  On days when homeschooling is a struggle (and trust me we do have those) we just need to put it away.  We need to go outside for a walk or just have time to play.

I am blessed with 3 healthy children.  No issues.  No behaviour issues.  I actually had another mom at one of my sons activities ask me how I do it.  "How the heck do you do 3 and homeschool and still smile".  I only have one and I am overwhelmed.  My response " I don't even know what you are going through because my kids are all healthy, so I give you credit"  She actually offered to pay me to meal plan and grocery shop for her as we were discussing how I felt the importance of nutrition so important to my children health and happiness.  Like I have the time for this service.  So I just wrote her a list of some simple ideas to try.  That is all I have to give.


I have days where I feel like supermom.  Everything goes right and everyone seems to be all on the same planet.  Moods are good, everyone sleeps, and I feel fantastic.  These days I cherish.  Then there are also the ones I struggle through.  Drinking too many cups of coffee to count, staying in pjs all day, and feeling completely out of control.

There is no right or wrong way to do things all we can do as mother's is try to be our absolute best.

So today.  Give yourself a pat on the back.  Sometimes we just need to hear we are doing okay.

Also if you see another mom out there doing a great job be sure to compliment her because I bet she is also struggling with
MOM GUILT!

This may seem so very odd as some of my fun childhood memories are of sleeping over at friends or having them stay over at my house.  However times are so very different.

I had a lovely conversation with a mommy friend mentioning all my concerns and issues surrounding sleepovers and she said “hey we have decided as a family that we will never have sleepovers”.  This made me feel not so crazy.

So many issues I have with sleepovers now a days and honestly it just doesn’t fit for our family.  Maybe because I am such a controlling parent however I am also totally ok with that. I never knew how terrifying being a parent would be until I was in the midst of trying to raise my children.   I would rather have a rule from day one that have to implement this rule later in life due to an unfortunate circumstance.

From what we have seen from sleepovers kids like to stay up late, which can be a tonne of fun however for me as a parent the next day is miserable.  I’ve dealt with my own child suffering from anxiety as well children sleeping over with similar issues.  We have implemented such good routine and sleep habits that we simply don’t want to disrupt this.  I'm currently laughing while typing this because our older two children sleep well.....let me tell you about this 4 month old of ours who has thrown anything we thought we knew right out the window.

Kids now a days have technology readily available and this isn’t something I feel comfortable with as a parent.  We have all of our technology limited and restricted however not every other family is the same.  Imagine if your child has access to Netflix with no parent around. Now imagine another child has an older cousin or friend teaching your child something.  Imagine your child knows how to spell and how readily available very awful things are on the internet.  This makes me very uncomfortable.

Now that we have 3 children we have to take the best interest of the whole family into consideration.  Whether it's our oldest son having a friend sleepover and having his younger sister just next door in her room.  It takes just a minute for something awful to happen.  This is not something I am willing to have as a parental regret.  Now we choose our friends and our childrens friends and they are all great people, however sometimes not great things can be taught to unsuspecting little people.  We may not even be aware of this. I remember as a teenage having sleepovers and sneaking out and let me tell you that we did nothing GOOD!  Chances are most sleepovers are innocent, but I'm not taking any chances.

So rather than having to make this rule at a later date we have chosen to implement this from the start.  We sat our oldest down (who is 7) to discuss this and he was not upset at all.  He completely understood and said it's ok guys I like sleeping in my own bed. 

We discussed our solution to our NO SLEEPOVER POLICY.  This included "late night date night" which is something special, just like sleepovers.  We could go for pizza and a movie and stay up late.  Yet everyone goes home to their own beds.  We also discussed doing family sleepovers.  We could stay over as a family at our friends houses but I don't see that happening any time soon with our baby who doesn't sleep.

I was so very grateful for having reached out to a friend who made me feel a lot less crazy and that my decision was absolutely normal.

For me sleepovers just aren't worth it.  I am just not willing to take any chances I might day regret.