Are you a joyful mom?

Are you a joyful mom to be around?

Just take a second and reread the heading of this blog...because I had to ask myself that question over & over the last few weeks.

And the answer scared me...

Life is hectic.

As if our days aren’t filled enough with work demands, school activities, homework, keeping your marriage/relationship healthy, dealing with general life-stress, balancing a healthy social life, making sure your household plants don’t die...let’s just throw in (for fun sakes) having the pressure of raising our kids in such a way that society won’t do it for us & then we end up having to deal with little “society-image-driven” little humans.

A few weeks ago I noticed when I have an “emotional off” day my kids seem over clingy, emotional & attention demanding.

And I then tried to take a step back and look at what is going on.

This is what I noticed:

On the days I am happy, the days I laugh with my kids about the silly little things in life, the days I make an effort to look them into their beautiful little eyes and affirm them and their individuality over &over again, the days I make time to sit with them and build puzzle/color in/play clay etc...strange enough those were the days my kids were just the easiest little humans to manage.

No worries or problems whatsoever.

But come those horrid days where I feel bleh, those days where I barely laugh, those days I don’t choose to deliberately ENJOY life, those are the days my kids feel it most. Those are the days when parenting is extra hard as the kids are so difficult all of a sudden.

We all get them. I get them.

Those days we just buckle up and hope to come out alive without smudged makeup at the end of the day (sometimes I just don’t even do the makeup on those days as it just make for extra cleaning)

We all know some people who just drain you. Spending time with them is not the most uplifting or encouraging thing, you don’t necessarily feel rejuvenated after being in their presence.

BUT

We all know someone who makes us feel encouraged, joyful and just plain happy after having a cup of coffee with them.

Unfortunately as mothers, we have the same influence on our kiddies...

We do however have the emotional intellect & capacity to be able to put aside our emotions and feelings on those off days and just invest happiness into our littles.

Yes it’s difficult, yes it takes extra effort and time but the results of that is that your kiddies are happy because mommy is ‘happy’.

And, let’s be honest...after spending quality time with your children and you see the positive effect it has on them will in return make you feel better even on the worst of days.

Sometimes in life we just have to sit down, take a deep breath and realize “the sun will sun again tomorrow “ and that the time and positivity we rub off on our children makes for a happier family in general.

As the old saying goes “life is tough hunny. But so are you”.

Let’s try to be a fun parent to our kids, not one who drains our children emotionally when they are in our presence.

Xxx