The layoff notice...

I got laid off a few days ago.

It's a temporary layoff, but it feels crushing.

My situation isn't unlike so many other peoples. There are so many of us who woke up this morning in this weird, almost alternate universe, where this virus is spreading, our jobs have been temporarily suspended, and all aspects of life have changed and are changing drastically. We need to adapt to a this new normal. Less responsibility seems really heavy under these circumstances.

I am hanging my hat on the word 'temporary,' and the notion that life will go back to normal, or whatever the post pandemic version of normal will be. The mass layoffs and closures, the anxiety and fear of looming worst case scenarios, and this invisible sickness are all perishable. Amidst the chaos there is hope.

It will end or change eventually. If losing my job temporarily is the worst thing that will happen to me by the end of this pandemic, then I'll count myself as lucky.

I figured a layoff was coming given the near complete shutdown of our province. I didn't know when, and I had hoped that it wouldn't, but it was looming. I thought I would be prepared for if and when it did happen. I didn't expect to feel such sadness. It seems foolish or overreactionary, but I spent two days teedering from being fine to weeping and not understanding exactly why.

Not all feelings are logical, and not all of them make sense.

Perhaps the job loss is an easier thing to feel sad about than the giant mass of uncertainty that is causing this shift. It's somewhat tangible and concise, and it even has a direction that I can focus my emotions at. Perhaps it was the realization that my I had let my job become so deeply ingrained in who I am. I let it become a huge part of my identity, and losing it felt like I was losing a part of myself.

I saw the job more as something I owned than something I do.

There is both grief and comfort in knowing that we are all in this together. So far it's still early for us. Manitoba has only just been touched, while other places around the world are reeling and plagued with infection. It will get worse before it gets better, and the outcome relies on how seriously the population is heeding the advice to stay home and practice social and physical distancing.

Isolation is a luxury, albeit tedious at times.

Perhaps a bonus of being unemployed during this time is that it will restore other parts of my life. For nearly four years I've felt like life was bursting at the seams as I tried to juggle being a working mom. While the circumstances aren't ideal, this situation may give me a little bit of breathing room and allow to be a better mom. We'll actually have time to read an extra story, go for that bike ride, or play that game...

I hope amid all of this, there are silver linings for all of us.

Stay safe.

Update from the inside...

I still can't believe what's happening.

This pandemic is surreal, like it's right out of a movie or a book.

We've only been isolating ourselves in our homes, and "self distancing" (The newest buzz word of 2020) for a matter of days. A week or two... But it seems like longer. The situation changes by the hour, and it seems surreal and sort of apocalyptic, yet normal. Or a new version of normal anyway. Watching daily briefings from the prime minister and premiere, and other leaders from other countries makes the world feel so much smaller.

We are all affected.

Time as a whole feels different. It doesn't matter as much as it did last week, and it's a lot more abstract when you don't have anywhere to go, but you still have to maintain your daily life. For now the routines have been tossed out the window. Low grade anarchy for all of us, but we're managing. The kids are even getting some school work done.

I have developed a deeper appreciation for their teachers and early childhood educators.

I don't know exactly how to navigate this new normal. It's only supposed to be temporary, but who knows how long this pause will be or what normal will look like after life outside the house resumes. I get anxious when I think about it. This pandemic could last a lot longer than I'm ready to admit. I have to think day-to-day right now or I may go crazy.

I think the strangest part of it all is how big this is. It's moved from something that we watched distantly across the world while we went about our lives to a new way of life. It has changed the way we interact with each other and has already infected us with a deep sense of fear and paranoia.

I am so afraid... Of catching the illness, or of dying or having people I know and love die from this. I am scared of surfaces, invisible germs, and contact with people. I'm scared of the uncertainty that looms over the entire world, and the changes that are bound to come of this.

I'm scared, because my sense of normalcy is disrupted.

Who knows how this is going to turn out.

Like so many I sit in the comfort of my home, being afraid and doing my best to make this time and this life normal for my family.

I recognize my privilege of isolating. We can protect ourselves from what lurks outside. Or, protect outside from what may lurk in us. Other people don't have the option. The unsung heroes of this pandemic have been grocery clerks, restaurant workers, delivery drivers, doctors nurses, truck drivers...

As the world seems to crumble, many of the people on the front lines keeping it going don't even make a livable wage. It's so fucked up.

This is only the beginning. I understand that... The world is changing, and so are we.

Self isolation: Birthdays, school and breakdowns!

Tuesday was my niece's twelfth birthday. The plan had been to go to Montana's to celebrate for a family dinner, but life seems to be changing by the second and we all need to stay home to try to flatten the curve of this pandemic.

Self isolation. It all still feels like a dream when I actually think about it too deeply.

Instead, on my niece's birthday we all gathered in our own homes on a Facebook messenger video group chat to sing happy birthday, as my sister brought her a cake for a short but sweet virtual birthday party.

The pandemic wasn't as serious four days ago as it is now, but we all elected to stay in our own homes because it was the safest bet. Now it would just be what we are mandated to do.

The virtual birthday party was bitter sweet. It was maybe ten or fifteen minutes of us looking at one another on our screens and talking over each other awkwardly. I'm so grateful for the technology to be able to share in moments like this from far away, but I've never missed my nieces birthday. I felt profoundly sad not to be there for this one.

This situation is surreal. Fear and isolation are both still so new, yet already feel deeply ingrained.

Yesterday I woke up, hopeful that I could get all three kids to play some super loose variation of "school" with me. I joked about starting the day with O' Canada and making them call me Miss Cook. I thought I could at least keep up with the suggested assignments from their teachers, and ideas from educators and other parents online. Or, in the very least I thought I could keep a cohesive morning routine around the dining room table.

It all fell apart pretty fast. While I made the two older kids write in a diary and the little one draw in a notebook, I didn't even delve into the jump math or book reports. All of our attention spans couldn't compute this new reality. I'm not a teacher, and after this hard slap into reality, I realize that teachers should all get a billion dollar raise.

Less than an hour later my in home class was dismissed and I felt like a giant failure.

It's not a contest. I have to keep reminding myself that life is not a contest.

I had a good cry after watching everyone's homeschooling pandemic stories. I sat there, in my room with big fat tears rolling down my cheeks watching everyone's crafts, homeschooling, yoga, walks in the snow. The glossy instagram side of this self isolation hit deep. Instagram makes everything, including pandemics look like a goddamn snow day.

It was my first day home from work and I couldn't help but compare myself to all the other moms in my situation-- A big no no for all social media, I know this, but I'm more sensitive than pre-isolated me. Right now things that wouldn't normally bother me are really getting to me and I haven't quite navigated this entire situation yet.

Until that point my youngest kid had been wearing the same pyjamas for days. Chris and I had been tense and short with one another, and all three kids had been watching waaaaay too much TV. When self-isolation became the new normal, we stopped adhering to the bedtime schedule, and I started letting them do things like playing on my laptop that I said none of the kids would ever be allowed to touch, and playing on the newly charged travel iPad (that I only let them use during trips.)

We probably should be better at keeping our routines, but we are in uncharted territory. We may as well try to make things more enjoyable for everyone right now.

I keep wavering in my belief that it won't last too long, to my belief that this is the new normal for the foreseeable future. I hate being in this weird limbo spot.

I may try to enroll my kids in my weird dining room table class again on Monday. If anything, I'll make sure they keep writing in their journals. This is something I think they'll want to look back at one day...

It will get better.

Pandemic

I guess now is as good a time as any to start writing again.

The entire world is in the midst of a pandemic, and I am not sure how to deal with or react to the uncertainty of it all. I've lived through pandemics before, but my privilege and proximity (perhaps?) always shielded me from the affects. I have never experienced one like COVID-19 where isolation and fear are so rampant and toilet paper is so scarce.

Pandemic in the age of social media means the bombardment of information is a lot to digest. It is constant, and it ranges from hilarious to apocalyptic. Right now it seems like we're all just waiting for  a big ball to drop. At least that's how I feel.

What a strange and fascinating time to be alive.

Businesses and schools are closing down and people are being told to be mindful of social distance and self isolate themselves to flatten the curve and slow the spread. The devastation that has happened in places like China, Iran and Italy seem like out of a movie. It doesn't seem real. Social media gives voice to regular people, like me, to share their experience, their fears, and their warnings.

Some of these accounts have been utterly terrifying.

Then, there are other voices. People who aren't afraid or haven't gotten sick. People who have gotten sick and who got better. People who are defying what the experts are saying and who are going on about their lives as though nothing is happening and a sickness isn't seeping in.

I'm not sure about everyone else, but I am really struggling to figure out my feelings about it all. I keep wondering if I am overreacting or under-reacting. I can't make up my mind about it.

Am I scared? Yes, but I'm not so much afraid of getting sick. I'm afraid of this cloud of uncertainty looming over all of us, apart from this sickness. I don't remember living through anything like this before, where everything came to a halt and we have been advised as a society to keep to ourselves. I'm apprehensive of life after COVID, namely the economic impact it will have.

It seems surreal, and I keep playing it in my head like a movie or TV show.

Narrator: The pandemic was coming. Seeping in on the cold March night, in Winnipeg Manitoba. The centre of Canada. But she didn't listen. Nobody did. Life went on until it came to a crashing halt. Until the sickness grabbed hold of her and ahold of everyone around her. Was the the apocalypse? Was this really how it was going to end?

*Dramatic music and b-roll*

People have bought up insane amounts of toilet paper and sanitizer, preparing for quarantine, or perhaps the end of humanity. Costco and Superstore are the hottest spots in the city, with people spent the weekend lining up all the way around the respective buildings and filling their carts with hoards and hoards of food.

Lord help me, please let me get through this time with enough toilet paper and patience for my children who are on a super-duper extended weekend. I have always grocery shopped like we were moving into a bunker, so I have lots of pantry food. That said, I am not sure that one can ever have enough chips for an isolation period.

It's hard not to become consumed in it. It's hard to not panic and think of worst case scenarios, and then share them with your loved ones or on social media. It's hard to manage your reactions. Uncertainty is scary, especially when it involves so many people.

I think we will be ok. I think we need to take this seriously, and listen to the experts, and ride out this wave knowing that we're all in this together and that it'll be ok.

Wash your hands!

The Fortune Cookie

Yesterday I went for lunch with my friend Ben-- a former co-worker who has become a dear friend who I lunch with at least a few times a year.

We were seated by a massive bowl of fortune cookies at the new P.F Changs, catching up when the conversation turned to life, death and the universe. I don't even know how the topic came up, but I'm pretty sure I was the one to venture into this abyss.

"So, you don't believe in anything after death?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "I don't."

Ben, a science nerd, asserted that he didn't believe in anything more, though he hopes I'm right when I say that I do.

"I'm an atheist," he said. "You're born, you live, you die and you become nothing. That's it."

Whimsical ol' me, on the other hand couldn't fathom that.

Nothingness.

All of these thoughts, all of these memories and feelings, all of who we are fading away into nothing is too much for me to bear. This can't be the be all and end all of everything. There has to be a 'next' after we die, I just don't know what it is, and I often wonder (and clearly talk) about it.

I'll admit I am conditioned to believe in more. I grew up in a God-fearing, Christian home and attended church my whole life, until I was able to stop. In recent years I have come to believe that maybe god and heaven and the bible aren't what I thought they were. (That's a topic of another time) but even if my perception on that has changed, I still believe there is more than this. The very essence of what makes us-- Our soul, if you will -- doesn't just die. It becomes something more. It has to...

We discussed this for a little while, both respecting the others beliefs, but standing firm in our own.

"OK," I said. "Put your hand into that bowl and pull out a cookie. Not just any cookie... You put your hand in there and you dig for the perfect cookie and we'll open it up and it will give us the answer," I said.

"The answer being the meaning of the universe?" He questioned.

Yes," I said.

 "The meaning of life and the answer to the universe in a fortune cookie. OK."

We'd already opened a bunch of fortune cookies over lunch, and amused ourselves with our fortunes. Our server encouraged us to help ourselves, and we took advantage of that offer.

Ben put his hand in the massive bowl of fortune cookies, and he dug around for a second. He pulled out a cookie from the middle of the mass and he held it up.

"This is the one," he said. "The answer to the universe."

He opened the plastic wrapper. I watched, with a wave of silly curiosity.

Then he cracked the cookie, and low and behold IT WAS EMPTY.

There was no fortune. No little slip of paper. No answers to the meaning of life, death and the universe. THERE WAS NOTHING! -- We both reacted the same way, exclaiming "OH!!!!" at the same time, and laughing at the complete and utter irony of the fortuneless fortune cookie.

You couldn't have scripted such a perfect moment.

In fact, if he is right and this life is all we have, then its moments like these that make it special.

The rest of lunch was lovely. We caught up and ate some delicious food, and we never did manage to agree on the meaning of the universe or what happens after we die. It didn't matter.

Another time, and another cookie perhaps...

Brody - The Little Boy Who Left Behind A Big Legacy...

The other night I sat in my back yard talking, but mostly listening to Tori and Sheena Grühn, two sisters I’d reached out to through social media, tell me their story about Tori’s three-year-old son Brody.

When I reached out to Sheena a few days ago, I was hoping that she’d call me and tell me a little bit about Brody and about the Team Brody Foundation Inc., which was formed in Brody’s honour after he passed away on September 1, 2015.

I don’t know Sheena or Tori. I never met Brody, but this is Winnipeg and it seems as though we are all connected in some way. In this case, I went to junior high with their older sister and we have some mutual friends. That’s how it came to be that I watched their tragedy unfold on social media, and it gutted me. I was a new mom, watching this young mother go through every parent’s worst nightmare.

On August 31 a mutual friend posted about Brody. He was fighting a rare form of cancer that started at the base of his skull, diagnosed nine months earlier. That day he had seized and the situation was dire. He was in the hospital, hooked up to life support; Prayers, good vibes, and whatever else helpless people do when life is cruel, was encouraged. If there was such a thing as a miracle, Brody needed it.

I remember looking at his picture and the horrible, horrible words that captioned it.

A wave of despair fell over me, and I’ve never prayed harder to a God I wasn’t sure I even believed in, for anything. There had to be a chance. Kids aren’t supposed to die. Brody wasn’t supposed to die.

But he did die.

He died the next day at 6 pm while his parents lay with him, watching videos of him they’d shot on their phones. Tori said she was playing the last video she’d ever taken of him when his monitors started to “go crazy.” In the video you could hear his little voice saying “I love you,” and in real life he was slipping away. If you believe in signs and miracles and divinity, there was seemed to be so many little signs trapped in that most horrible moment.

They knew it was dire, but they didn’t expect it to happen like that. Not in that moment.

The hospital staff asked Tori if she wanted to bathe her son before they took him away. She did. She cleaned his little body that had endured so much during his nine months of treatment. She held him, and she washed him and when she was done she dressed him in big boy underwear and pyjamas before she said goodbye. She said that there was a kind of peace in doing that.

And then Tori left the hospital to a new reality.

In those first months, she could barely function. She shared her grief on Instagram, spilling her broken heart and soul into each caption and story she posted, and though each post was unbelievably sad she was so poignant and gifted in how she articulated herself. Every word and picture was a testament to this mother’s love and bond to her baby boy.

Tori was just 18-years-old when she gave birth to Brody. He was born five days before she graduated high school, and he even attended her graduation ceremony with her.

For the first two years of his life Tori was a stay-at-home mom. In 2014 she enrolled in CDI College when she was able to get Brody into daycare. She wanted to create a better life and future for herself and her son.

It wasn’t long after he was in daycare that Brody became ill. He was two, but he stopped walking and talking and eating. He became detached. Exhausted. Lethargic. He was always sick, but every trip to the emergency room – and there were a lot of them – Brody was diagnosed with minor ailments, or nothing at all. Three times he had pneumonia, another time it was an ear infection… The lump they’d discovered in his neck was nothing to worry about according to one nurse.

Tori knew something was wrong. Her little boy was always sick, and nothing seemed to be making him better. They would give him antibiotics, he would finish them, and he would still be sick.

Then, in December 2014, Brody’s ear started to bleed. When they looked inside they saw something shadowy protruding out of his ear canal.

They brought him back to the emergency room, and it took six people to hold the little boy down so they could try to cut a piece of the shadowy mass off and send it for a biopsy. They weren't able to cut anything off that day, but they sent the little boy for a CT scan, which confirmed that he had a tumor. The family was sent to stay in CancerCare's Ck5 unit on December 18th until the biopsy and portacath surgery was done.

On December 24 their worst fears were realized when he was diagnosed with stage 3 Rhabdomyosarcoma.

The mass had grown to cover one whole side of his face and head under his skin. The cells grew aggressively, like tree branches. But there was still hope, and they clung to it. Tori read that Brody had a 70 per cent chance of surviving this beast.

To look at Tori, it’s hard to imagine the hell she’s lived through. She looks younger than 23, but when she speaks her demeanor and experiences are old, well beyond her years. She is laid back and thoughtful. When she tells the story of when her world started to crumble in late 2014, she speaks so eloquently and factual.

Her eyes light up when she talks about him—sometimes in the past tense, sometimes in present tense. He was mischievous and had his mom and his aunts wrapped around his little finger. Even though he was so young, he was well aware that he will sick. He spent so much of his young life in the hospital that he even learned how to administer his own medicine through the tube in his stomach.

And though he spent countless hours in the hospital, he also had a ‘normal’ life too. There were many magical moments…Tinkertown. The Zoo. Playing at the park… He liked collecting toys and figures, and he was obsessed with clean. If there was an upside to being treated in isolation it was that Brody’s room was immaculate.

The little boy was special. He was feisty and so full of life, even when the cancer started to steal him.
This June 19 he would be turning five-years-old. It will be a hard day for the Grühn and Birrell family, but rather spending a somber day mourning for the little boy who will eternally be three, they will be celebrating in his honour, and hoping to give joy to other kids fighting cancer.

His family (The Team Brody Foundation) will hold Brody's 5th Birthday & Toy Drive at the Earl Grey Community Centre where Tori works. There will be pizza and cake and games for kids. There will be family, friends, and hopefully even strangers who want to help celebrate this special little boy with the big legacy.

It’s an open invite from a family who seem to quickly embrace strangers as new friends.
“Toys aren’t everything, but when Brody got a new toy while he was in treatment it always made him really happy,” she explained. “You don’t always know what’s going to happen, so I say spoil the crap out of your kids.”

“I wish I had spoiled him more,” Sheena said.

Tori, Sheena and the rest of Team Brody Foundation will hand deliver all the toys and donations to the children and teenagers at CancerCare themselves. They beam when they describe doing it last year.

“You’ve got these kids who are going through a lot and to be able to go in there, and give them something that will make their day and their treatment that much better is really awesome. When we dropped off the toys last year, the kids were so happy.”

Brody’s birthday isn’t the only fundraiser the group does. They’ve held a social, a benefit concert, blood drives, and bake sales in an effort to raise money for other parents of sick kids. They’ve applied and are going through the process to become a registered charity so that they can give tax receipts, but right now everything is still really grassroots. Even the money they raised for themselves when Brody was still alive, went back into helping others after Brody died.

“Nobody out there does what we do. All of the money we raise goes directly to the families for things like parking, or food, or even just for peace of mind so they don’t have to worry about money for a few days while they’re going through this,” explained Sheena.

Even more than the money, they offer support to families with children who are fighting childhood cancer.

“The biggest thing about having us around is that we know what you’re going through. When people tell you that they can’t imagine what you’re going through, we can because we know.”

This fall Tori is enrolled in the University of Manitoba. She hopes to become a pediatric nurse because knows that her experience can help others who are going through the same thing. She also feels at home in the CancerCare ward, where she spent so much time with her little boy.

“It’s home for me, I love going there,” she said as we wrapped up our conversation.

A Donation, a Doughnut, and a Delightful Conversation...

After giving blood today I sat at the closest table to the doughnut counter-- Easy access for an extra doughnut and a little bit of company since I was by myself.

The lady behind the counter, Lynne, was excellent at making conversation, though she may have been a little hard of hearing at times. She was an old hat at this, about four or five years in, at serving up cold drinks, coffee, and doughnuts to blood donors.

Each of us donors were treated to whatever we wanted. A doughnut and a bag of Bits & Bites? No problem. It's the least they could do since we'd come to give our blood.

I sat at the table and I inhaled my doughnut.

"They're good, aren't they?" She said. "They're from Salisbury House. Nothing but the best for our donors."

I asked her how long she'd volunteered for, and why she started.

It was something she needed to do she said.

About eight or nine years ago her husband needed blood, and not just once. He needed it regularly because he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. He was given three months to live, but he lived for 14 months thanks to the blood donations he received during his treatments.

"He was always going to die, his leukemia wasn't curable," she said. "But, we got an extra year because of the people like you who donate blood."

And that year, she said, meant the world to her husband and her family.

"He wasn't just given extra time, he was also given quality of life."

A few years after her husband passed away Lynne decided to start volunteering at Canadian Blood Services. She said being there and being able to tell people just how important their donations are is something she knows is important.

"I am a link for people like you who come in to donate blood. I have benefited from it, and I need to keep telling people my story," she said.

She recalled a time when her husband got a call cancelling his appointment because they didn't have any blood for him. It was time of dire straights. Blood donations, she assumes, had been slow and he would just have to wait.

"When you hear about them putting out urgent calls for blood they mean it," she told me, adding that her husband only had to wait a few days.

"He was OK, but if they bring in someone who's been in an accident..." Her voice trailed off.

We chatted a little longer while she tended to others and I sipped my Sprite. She was comfortable and motherly. I told her I enjoyed her company and asked if I could take her picture and share her story on my Facebook page. She looked at me in this funny way and she said "OK, just because you asked..."

I thanked her, and she thanked me, and then I got up to leave and to book my next appointment at the front desk.

"I hope to see you next time," I said.

"Book it on a Wednesday. I'll be here."

**Posted with permission**

Mom's the word.

WARNING: I swear in this post. Sorry mom, dad, work, kids, people who might be offended. All f-bombs were carefully thought out and planned for this post.

Something happened after I became a mom (and stepmom.)

Aside from all the love and joy that the kids bring me. Aside from the hugs and kisses and moments that I will remember for the rest of my life... Aside from the absolute love I learned how to feel for another human being, I have learned that there is a really dark side to motherhood.

I have lost track of myself, my friends, my waistline, any hobbies I had, and my career.

Motherhood has doubled the speed of life and added about eight bajillion things to my plate. I am having a helluva time keeping up. Where I used to prioritize tasks at work, I am now prioritizing whether I can fit a bath in for my kid/s tonight or tomorrow. Or, whether I can skip lunch, cut out early, and get some groceries before picking up my kid from daycare. Or, if I can MacGyver something semi-nutritious and good for dinner with whatever's in the fridge.

My mind never stops. I am constantly thinking of the things I need to be doing. The things I should be doing. The things that I will need to do soon, and sometimes the things I want to do.

I feel like this is not just me. No, this is all of us.

Right?

Please tell me this isn't just me.

Since becoming a mom I can't stop fucking up.

That sounds harsh, and I don't need a pep talk. Please, don't tell me I'm not fucking up. Trust me when I tell you that I am fucking up and that I am doing it often. In fact, sometimes that's how I remember that I checked something off my 'to do list,' because of the epic fail I made while doing it...

From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, I am chasing the day that will always beat me. I am trying to steal minutes for myself while the rest of the family is sleeping, or while I am pacifying the kids with bribes of treats or dreaded screen time so I can get stuff done. I am trying to multitask, and I am getting frustrated every single time I do it.

This isn't easy. Domestic bliss is by far the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

I can only imagine that I sound like a complaining shrew.  I know I do. I can't help it. It just comes out. That's another part of the new me that I am having a hard time dealing with. I didn't realize I'd be such a killjoy.

"Don't do that."

"Don't play with that."

"NO!"

"Stop doing that!"

"Get out of there."

"Stop fighting."

"Stop."

"STOP."

"STOP!!!!"

I don't even like saying no to the kids. I love them all so much that I would give them everything their little hearts desired if I knew it wouldn't make them terrible human beings. But no, this is part of it. Moms have to set boundaries and sometimes have to be a bummer.

Hey man, nobody wants to be a bummer.

I am searching for validation that I'll never get. I know that's not what we do all this for. But, damn. I need validation, because it turns out that I am not sure of anything. nope. I am not sure of a single thing. I am winging it all. So, I need validation that I am somehow winging it all in an alright way.

I need someone to notice that I'm a busy as fuck person. I need someone to tell me that I am not suffering from postpartum depression when I have a breakdown because my kid is being a jerk. I need someone to tell me that I'm not a shrew, or a nag, or a killjoy, or overbearing. I need someone to tell me that I'm not a total write off as a friend because I only text back about 40 per cent of the time. (I'm so sorry friends!) I need someone to tell me to take an hour for myself and to go to the gym, or for a walk, or do whatever I want to do just for me...

I need way more validation than I'm ever gonna get, and if you're a mom chances are you do too.

We lose ourselves in this, because it's not equal and it's not easy and we are expected to work and be homemakers, and lovers and friends. We are expected not to stay fat after having babies because that means we've let ourselves go (If Maria Kang can do it, what's your excuse? Ugh.) And we are expected to fundraise for our kids, throw them Pinterest-worthy birthday parties, join a book club, and drink wine with our girlfriends... We are expected to shatter the glass ceiling, because somehow in the day and age, men still make more money than us for the same jobs. Oh, and we are expected to get the kids a snack and some milk about ten times a day.

In all of this, where do we find time for ourselves?

If there's an answer, somebody tell me!