Diets are...absurd

But-plot twist- that's not even what this post is about!

Hello again, beautiful people! If you’re one of the 18 people following me, I have a few things to say to you. 1) Thank you so much! I appreciate it! 2) If you find any of this valuable, please do share. 3) You already know that diets are absurd, so do we really need to discuss it further? Sure, we could. But I, like you, am a multi-dimensional being who has other things on her mind, not just food, diets, and how to be skinny like Gwyneth Paltrow or whomever.

Summary about diets being absurd, for those who are here for that: If you’re eating when your hungry, stopping when you’re full, and have healthy ways to cope with your emotions, then a diet is intentionally keeping food away from you when you know you want more and that kind of sucks. It preoccupies your mind all the time, keeps you hungry and obsessing about food, especially the "forbidden” foods, and makes you feel like crap about yourself.

Great. We covered that. Phew!

Photo by Xan Griffin on Unsplash- I will title it, “woohoo!”

Now, let’s move on.

I have just made some HUGE changes in my life, and I’d like to share if you don’t mind.

In case you don’t know, I’m a mom of three small kids ages 5, 3, and 1. And also, in case you don’t know, that’s some hard AF sh*t.

As a working mom, I’ve been feeling very (VERY) guilty. Why? Not because working is bad but because I’ve really been doing things that I’m not in love with. I’m a speech therapist and I am so grateful to always have a job, but is it my absolute passion? Not really. It’s not bad. I enjoy it to a certain extent, and honestly, I’m really good at it. I get amazing results and that feels good. But I want my legacy to be that of a writer, a personality, not a speech therapist. Meanwhile, I’ve been really confused about what direction to take in my business, so I’ve not really been enjoying work, not making loads of money, paying loads of money for childcare, and rushing my kids off to daycare everyday. Mornings are the worst. It’s just never ending “Go! Go! Go!” And then evenings, after daycare, felt pretty much the same. The result? I felt unfulfilled professionally and like I have no actual quality time with my kids. Instead, I had a lot of times that I really resented my kids.

I needed to make a change.

So I did.

I decided I will only keep one job as a speech therapist that pays the most per hour. I also knew I wanted to homeschool but have been terrified to take the kids out of daycare because I didn’t want to be with them 24/7 without any time, or very limited time, to myself. My friend suggested I hire a babysitter to be with them a few hours a day and I was like, “YES!” That sounded perfect.

I had a babysitter already, but she leaves for college in August, so it was going to be a very temporary solution. I figured at least I would get a taste of how this would feel.

At the same time, my former babysitter, who was awesome but left for Russia for the summer (where she goes every summer) and then will be off to college in the Fall, asked if she could give my number to her friend who just moved to the Chicago area and is looking for a job. I said, “sure”.

This friend called me, I believe, if memory serves me, the very next day. She sounded very calm and confident right away and I thought, “this is great, we found a babysitter for my new plan.” But then, at the end of the conversation, she offered up, “I could even be a live-in nanny, if you want.” My jaw probably physically dropped. I’m not sure, there was no mirror. It dropped because late last year and early this year, I was looking for an au pair, which is like a live-in nanny, and had gone through several interviews where everything seemed great and at the last moment, the potential au pair said they found another family. It was emotionally exhausting and a huge time investment. I had long given up, though I thought this would be a great solution. Now, months later, at the exact moment when I needed someone, she dropped into our lives like a…well, like a manifestation!

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

I manifested a live-in nanny, I suppose!

And…here we are. I took my two older kids out of daycare as of last Friday! Something I’ve been wanting to do for a good long while, now. The entire week leading up to the nanny’s move-in, I could almost feel the weight of the guilt I have been building up inside of me being lifted off my shoulders. One evening, I was even able to cook dinner, talk with and enjoy the kids, and organize the pantry all at once. ORGANIZE THE PANTRY. Woah. I literally cried of joy. Like for reals, y’all. In that moment, I remembered that I didn’t always hate my life with kids and actually could enjoy them, too! I think what happened was a lot of the guilt was released and it freed up some energy. I went to bed that night feeling good and not exhausted as usual.

Today, it’s been one week since I took them out of daycare. There was the long weekend, so it’s only been three “regular” days, but here’s how they went.

I got to go to the gym with them one day (there’s a child’s center) and without them (taking them to the gym everyday is painful and I just can’t, they would not appreciate it), I got to go on a walk with just the baby sleeping as the two older ones played with the nanny, and we’ve been to a chicken farm where we get our eggs and where we learned about and fed chickens, a petting zoo where there were way more animals to feed, and a really cool museum. The kids were so happy and really exhausted, in a good way, at the end of the day. My oldest has been having a lot of outbursts lately, and maybe this is a coincidence, but he hasn’t had one in three days. And I have felt absolutely no guilt about it whatsoever.

The best part? That there is no feeling of doom that this will end once they go to school. This IS school.

If that part confuses you, let me explain. I am not just going to homeschool, but unschool, which is like a 15 out of 10 on the cray-cray scale. Unschooling is…wild. I mean, the concept is earth-shattering, at least it was to me. I would be happy to explain more if anyone is interested, let me know in the comments, but for now, we’ll leave it at that.

This is my life update :-)

As most people, I am not one-dimensional, see?

Think about how many more dimensions there are to you than just eating and becoming smaller. Isn’t that fun?

Until next time,

From a slightly less confused mom,

Asya