Today is a Marathon, not a Sprint

I’m going to tell you about my favorite mom secret. The way I handle the days when everything is falling apart and you don’t even want to open your eyes, let alone run after toddlers all day long. It started when I was pregnant with my youngest and exhausted from HG. Willow and I would curl into a ball together on the couch and watch ‘The Chew.’ She snuggled her head into me and held my arm around her. They were these perfect quiet moments in the midst of chaos. Sage has not quite picked this cuddle habit up yet, but the idea remains the same. My motto for those days is “Today is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Monday should have been one of those days. I woke up heavy-lidded 3 hours early wanting nothing more than to crash back to sleep. I was determined to be better than what I had in me that day, inner me had a whip and was not afraid to use it. I can almost hear her even now, “GO! Make an omelette! Clean everything! You’re disgusting why is it dirty? Why aren’t you playing with the girls better? DO IT ALL RIGHT NOOOOWWW!!!” And you know what? I did. I rocked Monday. We played board games, we cleaned, we ate fancy all day, we worked out….twice, we did the laundry(we read books.)

Then, came Tuesday. I was angry and hopeless. I hated everything. I was so tired I did not even want to move and the kids touching me made my skin crawl because all I wanted was to sleep. In true waterfall fashion, all the stresses of Monday and Tuesday fell onto Wednesday evening ending me up in tears that bled over to the 4 am wake up. I have officially declared an emergency marathon not a sprint day, to make up for the two that should have been.

Runners talk often about the difference between a marathon and a sprint. In a sprint, you go all out as fast as you can because it’s such a short distance, but if you are running a marathon, you run at a slower, steady pace acknowledging that you need to preserve energy. Sometimes, as moms, we need to take a minute and rest, refuse to hold that against ourselves and allow ourselves to breathe and heal. We hold ourselves to such a high standard of working constantly on whatever the next task is, but it is so important to stop to hear our own thoughts and voice inside and catch up with ourselves. Just as runners run slow and steady when the course is long, we need to slow down sometimes because ours is even longer. Our marathon is 18 years long, and that cries out for slow and steady.

So, if you need to take a second to breathe for a day, slow your pace. Motherhood is always running, so take a break from everything unnecessary. Watch too much tv, lay around on the couch for a day, eat makeshift meals(the kids will probably like them better anyway.) Let things go a little bit. Then, when you have gotten through the marathon, build yourself back up, drink some water, take a breath, and get back up.

I hope you have a great day, and if it is a marathon day, I wish you well, and I’ll see you in the trenches. ♥️♥️

Also, for anyone who thought I was a parenting expert about 30 seconds after I wrote this I found my toddlers with my special birthday markers and theyrepeatedly tore their diapers off. I did not keep my cool.

#justbreathe #Todayisamarathonnotasprint