Category: Fulfillment

Motherhood shouldn’t just be a drudgery. Find fulfillment in your most important calling–mother.

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Fulfillment

Feeling fulfilled Fridays!

It’s the first week of feeling fulfilled Friday on MamaBlogga! Here’s how it works:

  1. Make a list of things that make you feel accomplished (but aren’t so huge that they take more than a day or a week)
  2. During the week, try to focus on those things that help us feel accomplished
  3. Report on feeling fulfilled Friday

This week had definite ups and downs. Over the weekend, I came up with 13 things that make me feel “super accomplished.” On Monday, I managed to hit several—I turned off the television for hours. I read scriptures with the kids, played with the kids, helped them learn something new and even exercised.

On Tuesday, I did the laundry. I wasn’t as patient as I should be (when am I ever?). It’s always frustrating to send literally, physically drag Hayden to his room as discipline, but it wasn’t until Rachel spent the entire afternoon fussing that I really started to lose it. I finally had to put her down in my room so I could make dinner without hearing her screaming. So I’m chained to the kitchen, making dinner, Rachel’s screaming nonstop for an hour, and Hayden and Rebecca choose this time to play with water in the bathroom. Tears ensued, and I thought my whole week was shot.

Wednesday, the kids lost my keys (I found them after being inspired to look in a cardboard box they like to hide things in). Several times during Tuesday and Wednesday, I was so overwhelmed that I turned on the television and planted myself in front of the computer for completely (or mostly) unproductive surfing. Thursday morning it looked like I was going to have to make do with less than five hours of sleep again. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to write this post today.

But you know what? It didn’t end up all bad. I got more sleep Thursday, and was careful not to get on the computer. Yeah, we still spent most of the day in front of the TV, but I was more engaged with the kids, and they got into less trouble and needed less disciplining.

And that feels good.

What makes you feel accomplished? How did you feel fulfilled this week?

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Fulfillment

Feeling fulfilled Fridays badges

On Friday, I announced Feeling Fulfilled Fridays, a new feature on MamaBlogga to help us mothers see the things we’ve accomplished.

I’m starting by making a list of things that make me feel “super accomplished”—the things that make me feel like a good mother as I’m doing them or afterward. This week, I’m going to pick just a few of those things to work on each day, and report back on Friday.

Want to participate? Spread the word! Grab one of these badges (code below, the only difference is size), make one of your own, blog about it, Tweet it, Facebook it—but most importantly, think about the little things that make you feel like you’ve done a good job as a mother!

<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/feeling-fulfilled-fridays/" title="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/FFF.png" style="border: 1px solid #4c2400;" alt="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays badge" /><br />feel fulfilled in motherhood with MamaBlogga</a>

<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/feeling-fulfilled-fridays/" title="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays" style="text-decoration: none;"><img src="http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/FFFsmall.png" style="border: 1px solid #4c2400;" alt="Feeling Fulfilled Fridays badge" /><br />feel fulfilled in motherhood with MamaBlogga</a>

What’s on your list?

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Fulfillment

Feeling Fulfilled Fridays!

A New Feature on MamaBlogga

A couple months ago, one of my bloggy friends wrote a short post detailing things that made her feel “super accomplished.” Her list included things she’d done with each member of her family that week—specifically, time she’d spent one-on-one with each of them—as well as things that make her happy personally. A-ha, I thought. That has something to do with fulfillment! How can I steal build upon that?

The “big” accomplishment of motherhood is years—even decades—away. We can’t put off feeling fulfilled in this most important calling until our kids have kids of their own. So I want to help mothers find fulfillment in motherhood (and find it myself) every day—or at least once a week. And since Friday is not only alliterative, but a good time to review the accomplishments of a week, that’s when we’ll do it!

So, what are Feeling Fulfilled Fridays? They’re Fridays where we can look back over our week and say, “Yeah, I accomplished something this week.”

How do we know we’ve accomplished something? This can work a couple different ways. For me, I’m going to make a list of things that make me feel super accomplished. (Note: not über accomplished, like birthing a baby or finishing a first draft. Those kind of “accomplishment” milestones are a long time coming. I’m sticking to stuff I can do in a day or a week.) On Sundays or Mondays, I’m going to pick two or three things from the list and strive to complete those at least once during the week. On Fridays, I’ll share.

Great. How can you get in on that action? I’m so glad you asked! The way I most want you to participate is to think about things that make you feel accomplished as a mom and a person and make time for those things. But if you’d like to report back on how that experience makes you feel, I’d be delighted to hear about it. Next week, I’ll have a Mr Linky (or something similar) up for people to add links to their blog posts. You can also comment on next week’s Feeling Fulfilled Friday post if you don’t want to do your own.

Until then, spread the word! Let’s see how many people we can get in on this! Check back on Monday for awesome badges for your blog.

So, what makes you feel super accomplished?

Photo by Leo Reynolds

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Fulfillment

No, not an easy button

Okay, I guess it would be nice to have a real version of Staples’ Easy Button (you know, you press it and you get instant answers and/or products to instantly solve your problems). What I really need is a RESET BUTTON.

  • For a day when I just can’t be patient
  • Alternately, for a day that I’ve wasted in a book or on the computer while the kids are parked in front of the television (or throwing every toy we own out of the toy box—while a bigger mess, this does seem a lesser sin)
  • On that note, for the family room, Mt. Laundry on the loveseat and, again, every toy we own piled up around the toy box
  • For the rest of the house, choked with clutter that is beginning to attack me. (Seriously. I think I broke my toe last week. Don’t even ask about the bruises.)
  • For my relationship with Hayden and Rebecca, when I hear them echoing back harsh words or tones I’ve used with them, especially to one another.
  • For my sleep and correlated patience levels! (Hm. Related to the previous?)

Personally, I’m prone to wait for a good time to reset—after I’ve gotten enough sleep (ha! with a seven-week-old, even one that sleeps pretty well?), tomorrow morning, Monday. But, really, there’s no time like the present to try again. Aside from the need to rock Rachel’s bouncy seat constantly, I can always turn off the TV and get down on the floor to play with the kids. It would only take a couple hours to clean up the major messes in here. But I get overwhelmed by all the things that need my time and attention, and cope by neglecting them all. (A good solution, eh?)

What do you do when you’re overwhelmed? How do you hit the reset button?

Photo by yum9me

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Fulfillment

A great reward

This past weekend is a state holiday here in Utah. It commemorates the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley. Usually, speakers in LDS church services note how glad we are that we don’t have to walk all day long, cross dangerous mountain passes, and domesticate a wild desert, and (more importantly) how grateful we are as their biological and cultural/religious heirs for the sacrifices they made to practice their religion in peace. (And yes, I am glad for all that.)

Even the traditional hymns, actually written by those pioneers, convey that message. But one hymn in particular touched me this weekend as I thought about (and participated in) my own struggles.

Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
‘Tis not so; all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward,
if we now shun the fight?

This is always appropriate on a Sunday morning, when I spend an hour trying to keep my children quiet enough to not disrupt the service too much, while my husband sits on the stand. It’s certainly a fight, even with all the generous help we get from others in our congregation.

But it’s appropriate on a higher level, too. It looks like our modern age doesn’t have a monopoly on entitlement, thinking we should earn a great reward without a fight. But really, why should we think to earn a great reward without doing anything to earn it?

Motherhood is hard. I don’t think I’ve ever danced around that, and I learn it again every week. But don’t we all know, deep down, that the things that are really worth doing are the things we really earn?

Because motherhood and our children are worth it.

The rest of the verse encourages us onward:


Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we’ll have this tale to tell—
All is well! All is well!
—”Come, Come, Ye Saints,” William Clayton

What do you think? How can we be ready and willing to earn the great rewards of motherhood? What are the great rewards of motherhood?

Photo by Nick Young

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Fulfillment

Is it worth it?

You’d think the third time would be easier to get going with nursing a baby. In some ways, it is, of course—you’re used to some of it, and you know some things that are normal. But once again I find myslef turning to the Internet for help and guidance with problems.

One of my favorite resources is kellymom. I came across a page called Are mothers supposed to love breastfeeding 24 hours a day?, and some of the thoughts there made me think of more than just breastfeeding:

Our culture has become so addicted to the concept that we are supposed to only do what makes us happy or brings us immediate joy, that we lose a lot of the good stuff along the way–pride in accomplishment, joy in fulfilling a commitment, feeling of achievement through meeting a goal. I don&apos;t think this means people are more selfish today than they were in the past, I just think they have been taught to have different expectations about what they are supposed to feel and how they should respond to those feelings.

How do you think we can re-learn how to “respond to those feelings”? Can we help our children learn a better way?