You're Doing Great

Even though I know that I give my kids plenty and generally don't go down the FOMO rabbit hole, last week at the onset of April vacation I found myself feeling a little discontented. Partially because Jon and I are both independent business owners (meaning, if we stop working, the money stops) and partially because we've never been into traveling when everyone else is traveling, we had no plans.

I did gently express my guilt to my kids and I have to hand it to them, they were like, "Mom, it's all good! We're just happy to have a relaxing week!" Who knows if they were providing empathic cover on my behalf but I embraced it; I still had meetings and shit to get done, but I did delete the nonessentials off my to-do list and created space where I could...space for more hugs and laughs and conversations, space for puzzles (almost 3 of them!), games, TV, treats, movement, creative projects, and photo shoots.

I have always described Asha Dornfest and my book "Minimalist Parenting" and the Edit Your Life Show podcast as guides for identifying your baseline of (sometimes insufferable) chaos and figuring out how to make small tweaks and edits to dial down the chaos. This past week was a good example of how powerful the small moments and actions are...how love can fill any space, however ordinary.

I originally thought the framing of this post was going to be of the "good enough mom" ilk. But that is diminishing so FUCK THAT. If you are doing the best you can with the circumstances in front of you, and if you make your kids feel seen and heard and loved in whatever ways are available to you in the moment, you are doing fucking great. I am proud of you.

P.S. Photo 1: me dusting off my DSLR to take some portraits for Laurel at her request. Photo 2: On one of my meeting heavy days, Laurel made me a plate of her famous apple oat pancakes. What a beautiful gift that was.