Mom's Balance

Balance.  A simple word, a simple concept, so much more difficult to enact than to say.  I find new ways to describe my life as a fine balance.  Yesterday I used it to describe my need to have ambitions outside my full-time mothering of my delightful children.  My work-outside-the-home husband's life ambition is to raise happy healthy children who grow into good adults.  On a big level, I feel he (or our society's expectations) expects me to feel complete with 20 years as a full-time mother.  As a homeschooling attached parent, this requires even more of my role.  However, my life's ambitions are to grow, learn, and heal (self, others, and our world).  The child-raising side of my balance is quite fulfilled.

There are many ways to expand my world with children at my side, such as sewing, healthy baking, sour dough starter, homebrewing kombucha, and growing and learning aside my children.  The sorting of books, cupboards, clothes, schedules, and the organizing of craft projects keep me (more) calm while I ask my child for the 13th time in three minutes to keep food at the table.

If mothering is on one side of this pendulum of balance, the other side holds my time alone, child-free time with friends, and time to learn and grow as a student of various studies.  One challenge with this balance is I require my husband's time to find my own balance, as he automatically has my time for his own home-work balance.

As my children are now awake and chasing kittens as their papa catches that last bit of sleep, I conclude with this.  My life is awesome.  I am supported and appreciated by my husband.  I am here for my children, yet also I am here for myself.  It takes a team to find balance.  I love balance and I love my team.

I love my team.