Leah McDermott

For the past 10 days, my husband has been out of town, so I’ve been solo parenting (on top of running a business, keeping the house clean, pets cared for, etc.).

Now, when I dropped him off at the airport, I had super high lofty goals about what I was going to accomplish while he was gone. I’ve always had a bit of an independent and prideful streak in me so maybe I felt like I had something to prove to myself, but regardless, dangit I was going to do it all! I told myself that he’d come home to find the house spotless, the cupboards and fridge full of healthy meals which I’d carefully prepared all week, the bank account would be full since I was able to easily balance motherhood and crushing it in my business, and everything would just be downright amazing.

Fast forward 72 hours…

Toddler starts getting his 2-year molars so he is a feverish, drooling, diarrhea mess. There are so many toys on the floor I can’t see the carpet, but I probably don’t want to because who knows how much dog hair and goldfish are hiding underneath the mess. I haven’t gotten out of pajamas in two days. Dishes are piling up (or at least they would be if I hadn’t ordered takeout for 2 nights in a row). Oh… and I haven’t done a single task for my business.

WAKE UP CALL.

Not only did I realize that I absolutely needed to address some of my insane expectations of myself as a Supermom, and just how vital of a role my husband plays in the daily running of things, but I also realized how many little nuances about my children I miss, despite the fact that I’m with them all day long.

You see, the main reason that my husband and I started our business and left our 9 to 5 jobs was because we wanted to be home for our children during these crucial years of their development. We wanted to build a life that allowed us the freedom and flexibility to travel, to explore, and to adventure with our children at any given moment.

And yet, this week I realized that even though I work from home and am around my children for the majority of every day, I’m definitely not tuned in as much as I could be.

I realized that I don’t even understand a good portion of the things that my toddler says to me. My older child had to translate multiple times for me this past week. A trip to the weekly Library Storytime (usually Daddy’s thing) was a disaster of epic proportions, of which my 5year old so kindly told me never happens with Daddy.

This week I felt burnout, exhaustion, and levels of frustration that made me put single parents on the highest freaking pedestal on this planet.

But despite all of the moments of sheer chaos and overwhelm, I’m SO grateful for the experience. It helped me see that I can’t do it all, which is something I probably needed to learn for the past 30 years. And it forced me to tune in and pay more attention to the moments during the day that are seemingly unimportant- the conversations at the breakfast table, the 350 times a day “Mommy look at this,” sibling spats, shower songs, and the late night ice cream and Harry Potter parties.

This week forced me to slow down, and even though I’m not usually the type of person to want to do that (and I definitely felt frustrated by it), I am so, so grateful for the lessons it taught me.

So my challenge to you is to TUNE IN.

Don’t let GUILT about all of the other things in your life takeover, because I promise you all of those things will still be there. The laundry pile, the bills, the healthy dinners, the emails, the work… at the end of the day that will all still be there for you to do, but all of the little moments, the precious breathe JOY back into your life moments, with your child each and every day…. well… those won’t still be there.

So slow down and tune in. You won’t regret it.

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Several months ago we took a trip to the Pacific coast. It’s just barely an hour’s drive from our house so it’s something we do frequently, every chance we get a spare sunny day.  After a few hours of playing in the sand and surf, my oldest son Charlie, 4 years old, brought over a barnacled, long ago abandoned hermit crab shell and asked me if we could please take it home. 

There was nothing seemingly special about this shell… it wasn’t shiny or colorful, there was no living creature inside, and it even had a few cracks and holes, worn away by who knows how long it spent being tossed around by the waves. To the average adult eye, it was worthless, but of course I told him he could bring it along. 

For the entire drive home, he clutched the shell tightly in his grasp; every time I glanced in the rearview mirror I caught him turning it over and inspecting it, barnacle by barnacle. As soon as we got home the shell was granted an honorary space in Charlie’s treasure box, hidden away in his closet where his younger brother couldn’t find it. For the next couple of days, Charlie brought his shell out – inspecting it with his magnifying glass, showing his friends, showing his grandparents on Skype, and repeatedly reminding me of the details on the shell and regaling me with his knowledge of hermit crab life.

After a few days, however, the shell came out less and less and eventually fell to the bottom of the treasure box, buried by newfound tokens and treasures from Charlie’s many adventures. 

Just the other day, Charlie and I were reading a book about undersea habitats and sea creature life. When we got to a page about hermit crabs, in mid-sentence Charlie jumped off the couch and ran to his closet. I heard him rustling through his treasure box. Soon, he came skipping back out with the dirty, old shell held high in the air and a big grin on his face. 

“Mommy, Mommy,” he exclaimed, “do you remember when I found this shell on our trip to the beach!? This was a hermit crab shell just like in the book. The crab that lived in here must have gotten too big for its shell and found a new home. That’s why the shell was empty when I found it!” Grinning from ear-to-ear with the connection that he had just made and the memories floating past his mind’s eye, he sat on the couch daydreaming while we continued reading the story.

Two amazing things happened in that moment. 

First of all, from an academic standpoint, Charlie had what we in the education world would call a “text-to-self connection.” After reading something in a story, Charlie was reminded of something in his own life that helped him make a connection. In this case, the finding of a hermit crab shell. 

Now you may think that this is something that is obvious and you might be confused as to why this is even a named skill. But let me tell you — as a former fifth-grade public school teacher, I can tell you that an extensive amount of time was spent each year teaching 10 and 11-year-olds exactly what it means to have a text-to-self or text-to-world connection and helping them come up with examples of these connections. Simply having this old shell on hand helped Charlie make this connection in a meaningful way, early on in life.

The other incredible thing that happened in this moment is that Charlie had a tangible reminder of a memory. You see, young children have incredibly short attention spans and are very quickly moving from one moment to the next and one emotion to the another. Because of this fluid movement of our thoughts as young children, we have few memories that we carry from our early childhood for the rest of our lives. However, what this seemingly worthless crab shell did in this moment was give Charlie a tangible object that he could feel and see and hold, to bring the memory of that adventure back to life in a very vivid way.

So when your child sticks a pebble in their pocket, or picks up a flower petal, or asks to bring home an oddly-shaped pine cone, remember that your child is creating and holding on to these precious childhood memories. 

As adults, we can learn a lot from our children’s attention to detail and ability to slow down and see the beauty in the small things. 

And maybe, just maybe, by encouraging and appreciating the simple childhood moments and collections, we won’t have to later teach our 10-year-olds that they are indeed connected to stories, to others, to the world, and most importantly, to themselves.

This article originally appeared in Huffington Post HERE.

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