A Mother’s Day Gift to Myself
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog. I started off with the best of intentions. So what has happened? Where did I disappear to? The vortex that we call motherhood, I guess. Finding time in my schedule for me has been difficult for the last almost ten years. It has been increasingly difficult with each new & wonderful addition to our family. This has been especially true since my three year-old son (third child) got an autism spectrum diagnosis last summer. My six year-old son got the same diagnosis when he was three.
It is a lot of work to provide a special needs child with what they need to develop in the beginning of such an adventure. There is much therapy involved, dietary changes, and many meetings to attend never mind the fact that it is just more challenging to parent a child like this in general. You will sacrifice all your time to assure that your son or daughter gets every resource available. The rewards make falling into bed exhausted at each day’s end completely worth the effort. My sons are truly special.
My oldest child is a nine year-old girl who is absolutely wonderful! I always say I don’t know what I would do without her. She is typically developing so she doesn’t need the same intervention that my boys have needed. However, we have been homeschooling her for over a year now so she does still get lots of attention. We both love it and I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. But it is one more extra challenge to the time that is available for myself.
I consider myself very blessed with the three gifts I have been given. I love being a mom and treasure each of my children with all their uniqueness. But I am starting to realize that I have been losing me. I need some time for my own pleasures and reflections. I keep my spirituality with daily bible devotions and prayer but I also need to embrace my own gifts and talents God has given me. I lost so much of myself with a tumultuous childhood and it carried over into adulthood. Now I pour so much passion into making sure I raise my own children so they can know they are loved and develop good character and an appetite for life. They’ve shown me that I’ve been successful at this. Now it’s time I put some passion into my own life.
The writer in me has been aching to come out. I’ve kept putting myself last on the list but now realize that this is unhealthy. So I am going to embrace my inner writer and will be doing so every day. It will start with blogging and may flourish into other writing pursuits. This is my Mother’s Day gift to myself. I think it is going to make me a better Mom too. I’m back, in a big way.
What is your Mother’s Day gift to yourself?
