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Motherhood

August 15 2022

Mommy Bossing – How To Juggle Momming With Bossing

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Article written by Ellen Ahrendsen

Moms- we have all been there. Exhausted, worn down, hopeless, and it is not even 7am. For me, a regular morning starts at 5:15 because that is the only time I have before the kids wake up (most days). Then it is straight to the grind. We are the boss of our businesses, our careers, and our homes. No matter what we do, we are juggling a million things.

5:15 am turns into 5:45ish am when the kids wake up, breakfast time and getting dressed before the park, soccer, another play date, lunch, nap, and then figuring out how on earth to keep them occupied until bed. During their naps, it is all about writing, blogging, gaining publicity, laundry, cleaning, ordering groceries, ordering things for the kids, prepping dinner, and trying to sit down knowing it will be the only time of the day I get to do it. This is all on a non-work day.

How is it possible that we can do this? We, as women, put pressure on ourselves to get absolutely everything done on our own. We think our way is the only way. We do not ask for help, especially when we need it. We feel that we need to do it all.

Mother and son walking through leaves. Text: Mommy Bossing - How To Juggle Momming With Bossing

What is Mommy Bossing?

Mommy Bossing is a new term that I have created. We not only are living our work lives, but we are mommy-ing. We are Mommy Bossing every single day whether we know it or not. Breaks are few and far between. All we want is some time to ourselves, but we are lost at how to find it. Just last night, I wanted to take a quick shower as it was my only time alone. All I heard were the kids screaming for me, refusing to go to bed. I had no alone time even though I was indeed alone in the shower. Juggling this all is so hard, frustrating, and sometimes seems downright impossible.

So what can we do?

Ask For Help!

Why are we so afraid to say “I need help.”?

It is one of the hardest sentences that one can utter. It feels like we are saying we are incapable of doing something or that we failed. This is absolutely the opposite! We are doing ourselves a favor when we ask for help. This is one of the best pieces of advice I got when I was pregnant. Someone told me to never worry about asking for help once the kids arrived (twins). I knew I would need it.

What I didn’t know was that my son would be born with a life threatening birth defect. I needed an entire village. And by asking for help, I got it. I was able to be less worried about tedious things like laundry or dinners. I was able to put the energy needed towards the care of my son in the hospital and my daughter at home.

Commit to at least 3-4 hours a week to yourself. Schedule it!

This could be a morning walk, meditation, time at the spa, or anything that makes you happy! You can do small things everyday or wait until you have a few hours to yourself on the weekend. I personally enjoy my time at 5:15 in the morning (even though that is so dang early!), and I have some time to myself every Saturday to get massages and do errands or other things. I enjoy this time so much; my husband knows he is in charge during that time. It is on the schedule, and it is something I look forward to every week.

Let go of expectations

I have a box where I put in all of the things I feel like I need to control, but in reality I cannot. It is called “My God Box.” It does not have to be religious, rather I think of it as spiritual as I believe in a higher power that some would call God. By putting these uncontrollable expectations in this box, I am handing it over to the Universe acknowledging that I no longer have control of the situation.

This box is full of things as simple as “I need to stop obsessing over how I expect my family to act,” or other things like “I need to stop trying to control the outcome of a certain situation (say applications for preschool for example).” I do not have control over how people act or how every preschool has a different application process. I do not have control on whether or not the kids will be accepted to certain preschools due to wait lists.

By handing these situations over, I am letting go of my expectations knowing that the Universe has control. Not everyone has to let go of expectations this way. It is simply the way I do it, but everyone is on their own journey and can determine the best way forward for themselves.

These are 3 main things all of us can work on. They may sound simple. But the Mommy Boss in all of us needs these tools in order to live a life where we don’t need to do it all, where we can have time to ourselves, and where we can thrive even more than we already are.

Find Ellen here:

Website | Instagram

Bio:

Ellen Elizabeth is an infertility warrior and recovery advocate who uses her skills as an author and sober mother of twins to coach women struggling with feelings of shame and inadequacy. These mothers feel powerless to quit drinking or unable to bring a child into the world. Through radical honesty and recovery principles, Ellen inspires moms and their partners in all forms to define who they want to be and transform their demons into dreams.

Ellen has been featured in publications such as Authority Magazine, Collective World, and Recovery Today Magazine, as well as several podcasts. To keep herself centered, she makes her home with her family of 5 (dog included!) in Colorado Springs, CO.

August 20 2021

Mom Life: It takes a village to go from surviving to thriving

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One day in 2013 I was contacted by a social worker. I got the news that they had a child that needed care. I cannot put into words how I felt when I saw him. I instantly knew that he needed as much support as he could get. We sat in the room getting to know each other. During the visit, I noticed outbursts over small things, such as a sucker that he wasn’t allowed to have. He reacted with big feelings.

At the end of the visit, I was talking to the case worker and asked if this behavior was normal and asked why it was happening. She said his current foster parents had reported this behavior and that he had attachment issues. I wasn’t sure how to feel. After I got home, I kept thinking about the behavior I saw, and also about how he looked.

On our way home, I realized he needed us more than we could’ve ever known. He didn’t seem to have joy, curiosity, or a desire to connect with me. I thought maybe this was because we were strangers. He was filled with so much rage and unhappiness that it was heartbreaking. Everything we did was a struggle and caused behavioral outbursts such as hitting his head, headbutting, yelling and crying.

Finally, I figured out that if I held him facing away from me on the sofa while rocking and repeating “you are safe, it’s okay to go to sleep”, that he would eventually fall asleep. It was a long process of teaching and showing him that he was safe. It took a while, but one day we were watching a kid’s show on television, and it played the theme song and I was dancing with him. He started to smile, and even gave a little dance. It felt like we connected.

I threw myself into creating tools, reading books, and listening to podcasts in order to help this sweet little boy. I learned how to reprogram his neurological system and taught him to trust me and feel safe. One of the things I did was create a “cozy area” and modelled for him how to say, “I am MAD”, and showed him how to clench his fists and stomp his feet. To help with his communication, I took pictures of household objects, cut them out, and laminated them to teach him how to tell me what he needed. He showed us the picture or pointed to what he wanted or needed. When he pointed, we said the word that went with the picture.

He caught on fast and started to look for the picture himself and eventually began saying the word too. It was an amazing day when we no longer needed the envelopes. The main goal was to be scheduled so he knew what to expect and to eliminate the struggle. One helpful tool was using a morning chart that had pictures of everything that he needed to do each morning. They were laminated and had Velcro on the back. I made it fun for him to move them after doing each step. I also did the same with our nighttime schedule.

Even though we were making progress, I felt like a zombie, or like those memes you see online, a “mombie”. I was exhausted, my body hurt, and I was always trying to stay one step ahead of his rage. Finally, I had a meeting with the case worker and the therapist. They shared their concerns because they saw how exhausted and burned out I was getting. They got him into a daycare where he could be socialized with other kids and I was able to get some much needed rest and time to practice self-care. This is where I realized I was just surviving the day not fully enjoying it.

Time went on and soon it was time for him to start kindergarten. We were so blessed with his teacher, he made some great friends, and he had pretty much stopped hitting his head, but he began hitting and throwing things in class. In the classroom he had a safe place to go when he got upset, and it seemed to work almost all the time. As we got closer to the end of the year, he started to act out by running to the downstairs of the school, and one day he got mad and threw a pair of scissors. We made the tough decision to put him in a specialized program where they could better support him.

It’s amazing to see how far my little boy has come. He is 100% ours now, as we adopted him.

Unfortunately, once he was officially adopted, we lost our team. We were incredibly blessed to have case workers and therapists that reassured me that I was making the right choices. All of that was gone. The last thing the therapist said to me was, “You know exactly what you are doing. This all comes naturally to you”. She told me that she had all the faith in the world in me and my abilities.

I learned that it takes a village to raise a child, and so I’ve made it my mission to help overwhelmed moms let go of the struggle and find ease with my high-level support, strategies, and powerful tools to help them become the kind of mom they truly want to be.

If you are struggling, it’s okay to reach out for help.

Meet Michelle:

My name is Michelle Den Boer. This experience is why I became the Mom to Moms. If you’re interested in finding out how tools can help reduce the power struggle at your house here is a free ebook, Empower Your Kids to Make the Right Choices. You can connect with me on Instagram, I have created a facebook group that is a safe space to connect with other moms.