I am a stay at home mom and I love this life. Before I went to ‘work’ in my yoga pants and spit up covered shirts each day I worked in hospital administration. I had multiple departments and hundreds of employees that I was responsible for. There were few days that went by where I was not told that I did a good job at something.

Fast forward to today my ‘job’ consists of cleaning up messes, making a meal, cleaning up a meal, wiping faces, tying shoelaces, reminding kids to put their jackets on, driving kids from point A to point B, laundry, and on and on and on. While these tasks may not seem difficult, the sum of them (and more) day in and day out can add up to something that feels heavy- especially when this job does not come with anyone who reminds each week that you that you are doing an amazing job.

I have found that in order to fully appreciate how awesome my life is as a SAHM and prevent the endless to-do list from wearing me down I need to do two things:

1.) SLOW DOWN

Children have a way of moving at a very sloooow pace. If I need to get everyone loaded into the van in 5 minutes I better allow for 10. Kids do not see why we are so urgent about things and why we need to rush out the door when there is so much to discover and so many questions to be asked within the walls of their home!

If I take a step back and slow down with the child who is taking their sweet time putting on their jacket and grabbing a toy that they must bring I find there is so much beauty seeing life from their perspective. Rather than being irritated that we are not on my timeline, if I take 30 seconds and engage the child by asking ‘what are you most looking forward to today’ or ‘why is that toy your favorite’ the end result is we are in the van 30 seconds later and the child is happy and I am not irritated anymore.

Maybe we can learn from children that there is beauty all around us when we slow down.

2.) BE INTENTIONAL

When we are going throughout our day keeping the tiny humans alive it is easy to feel like we are on a hamster wheel. They have so many needs and meeting these basic needs can be all consuming.

I have found that if I am intentional and choose to take a minute to enjoy the presence of the kids rather than move from task to task to task that I see so much beauty around me. I have jokingly referred to this as’ run and sit’ meaning I run run run and do all the things and then I sit and just be for a while. The messes and needs pile up again, but with a moment to sit and rest I am renewed and don’t feel like I am on a hamster wheel.

Also, while I am ‘sitting’ and not ‘running’ I look around and see my kids playing together and laughing. They ask me the silliest questions and stare at me with their beautiful little faces as if I hung the moon. When I am rushing through the day it is easy to miss these moments if I am not intentional to lift my head up from the endless work and see this beautiful life for what it is.

Finding beauty in the mundane is a funny thing because once you start looking for beauty it fills your heart with so much gratitude that you end up seeing even more beauty and the cycle continues leaving you with a full heart ready to ‘run’ again.

Until next time,