a water your toddler mama soul FAQ

Water Your Toddler Mama Soul begins next Wednesday, and today I want to share a quick FAQ:

What does "deep dive into self-care" mean?

I have to admit that I've been worried this phrase might be overwhelming to some. To me, a deep dive is a commitment to practicing something with your whole heart. So for these 10 days, my hope is that the mamas coming along will bring their hearts open to practicing self-care each day to see what it really feels like. However, the practices won't be intense. Quite the opposite really. They will be accessible and will take about 10-20 minutes each day (longer if you want them to). We will be taking photos and writing and getting outside to just breathe. And we will be supporting each other along the way. Also, I will be available by email and in the Facebook group for questions and support.

Why 10 days?

As a toddler mama, I know what it feels like to not have time for myself. But this is what I know: When I don’t take time for myself I’m not able to be really present for my life, for the everyday, for the beauty and the hard stuff. And I want to be present for all of it. 

And every time I’ve taken an ecourse since my daughter was born, I’ve never ever finished. Not once. And I like ecourses a lot. I like the community and the emails of wisdom in my inbox and the practices shared...all of it. But I seldom work through 4, 5, or 8 weeks of content.

Water Your Toddler Mama Soul gives you immediate accessible practices to reconnect with yourself in the midst of all that a day with a toddler or two or three brings. It gets right to it and gently pushes you to take care of yourself starting right now.

These are the practices I use each day, and when the class ends, you will be able to begin again, use the prompts that most resonated, and turn to the emails as often as you need to as a reminder that you are not alone. 

Do I have to be creative?

This isn't a class about being a creative mama or being creative with your kids. I do use the phrase "creative self-care" because many of the tools I use (photography, writing, and even meditation) fall under that category. There will be daily photography prompts that will be used as a tool to see your world and yourself. I can imagine that we will share ideas for ways to be creative with our toddlers in the Facebook group and look forward to those conversations.

Is this a class about parenting or about advice for parenting a toddler?

Nope. This class is about self-care for mamas. In the Facebook group, there could be threads started about parenting where someone asks for some tips, but that is not a focus of this class or of the Facebook group.

Can you define toddler mama? What if I’m not a toddler mama but this class speaks to my mama soul?

If you think you are a toddler mama, then you probably are! This class will focus on toddler moms and what they experience having a child between 1ish-4ish. I’ve heard someone call the newborn year “the longest shortest time.” This class will explore accessible self-care practices to support toddler mamas getting through that next stage that I think feels like a true continuation of that longest shortest time but with walking + talking + unexpectedness each day and so on. 

If your child is younger than 1 or older than 4 and this class speaks to you, send me an email and we can chat about it.

Tell me more about the Facebook group.

One of the reasons I want to create this class with a Facebook group that carries on after the class ends is because I think toddler mamas need a safe space to go where they can share how intense and gorgeous and crazy and beautiful the day to day is, and they will be held by a group of women who nod and get it and say, “me too, me too” because they are right there in it each day as well.

I deeply appreciate the perspective of moms of older children and turn to them for support. But sometimes these moms say things like, “Hold on to every moment.” and “Don’t wish this time away.” When what we really need to hear are other toddler mamas saying, “I hear this. This part of being a mom is hard for me too. You aren’t alone. I know you love your child, but of course this is intense. You are okay.” and so many other things that I believe only another toddler mama can feel in her body in this moment simply because she is in it too.

This first group of Water Your Toddler Mama Soul participants will help me to shape this Facebook group, and I can’t wait to dive in together.  

If you have any questions, please just send them over. 

Learn more and register here.

what is real (in toddlerland)

A glimpse into the real around here:

Yesterday, Ellie and I had a moment when I told her “no” about something she wanted to do instead of taking a bath and getting ready for bed. And, her response was to start hitting my laptop. 

I had my external hard drive attached to it (the one full of photos from the last year that I really don’t have another backup of), and she was pushing the laptop so that it almost fell. The hard drive disconnected. I raised my voice, insisting that she stop.

She yelled back, “Don’t yell at me Mama.”

I pulled a tiny bit of end-of-the-day patience from somewhere in my big toe and lowered my voice but spoke in a very firm tone asking her to please sit down in her chair, which was right behind her. 

She just kept yelling, “No. I won’t!”

After a few back and forths, Jon came in and tried to get her to sit in her chair too.

“No. I WON’T”

Here’s the thing: We don’t really "make her" sit in a chair in a time out (or “time in” as I like to call them) for lots of reasons and one is because moments like this usually pass quickly. Sometimes there are a lot of them in a day, but she doesn’t usually spend a lot of time in just one of these moments. She shifts to something else, then maybe back again to being crabby, and then back to joy. 

And I want her to feel her feelings - in her body, in her mind, in her heart. And notice what they feel like because being two is really about practicing in this safe place called home.

And I’ve found that it usually works to just let her yell for a minute. Then she will take a deep breath, and that will be my cue to say, “Do you need a hug?” And she will say, “Yes.” (Or more likely, “NO!...Yes, Mama, I need a hug.”)

But in this moment, I wasn’t listening to the voice inside me telling me this was the usual end of the day tired crabbies, and I wanted her to listen to me.

It was all about me. My laptop. My photos. My surprise that she was acting this way. My insistence that she sit in her chair.

I was calm about it with my voice. But my mind was all over the place, determined that she was going to sit in that chair because sometimes it feels like a tiny adorable dictator runs the show around here and what kind of parent am I becoming if I let her and what would have happened if I’d just lost what I was working on and if the pictures of her were gone and I was that person who lost the photos of her kid...

Oh the mind chatter that comes up around “What kind of parent am I????”

It had been maybe three minutes of this. Me saying, “Sit in your chair.” Her replying, “No. I WON’T!” Jon walked down the hall to start her bath, and she ran the few steps to the hallway and flailed her body onto the floor. 

“I need SPACE!” she said as she put her head against the carpet in child’s pose.

Seconds later, “I NEED my taggy blanket.”

Seconds later, “I need a hug MAMA!”

This series of words pierced through my mind chatter. 

I grabbed her taggy blanket, walked the few steps to where she was taking deep breaths with her head on the carpet, and as she turned to hold her arms up to me, I thought, “What kind of parent am I? The kind who is teaching her kid how to ask for what she needs. Wow.”

Most of the time I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. What works one day with Ellie, doesn’t the next. I wonder if I’m too permissive. I wonder if I sometimes take the path of least resistance and how that might be hurting her, us. I feel the guilt each day when I notice my patience slipping during those moments before bed time. I have some real pride wrapped around how patient I am with her, but when it begins to slip, I feel guilt paired with deep exhaustion.

Feeling like you don’t know what you’re doing but somehow trusting that you do, this is being a toddler mama. This is listening to your intuition. This is messing up and learning and messing up again. This is being present to all of it. This is letting your child teach you too.

Later, when Jon was reading to her and I had a moment to myself, I closed my eyes and said these words softly to myself:

Okay honey, you really are doing something good here. She asked for space. She asked for love. These are things you want and need too. These are things you’re trying to teach yourself, teach others to do. This is being a good mama. Yes. You got this.

An invitation: Even if you aren't a parent, you probably have moments where you feel like you don't know what you're doing. I believe that this is what being an adult feels like sometimes. We think it won't be this way, and then it is, and we wonder why. In this moment, spend a few minutes thinking about what "you've got" today. How are you surprising yourself with your grace, wisdom, and truth? How are you trusting all of it today?

*****

Water Your Mama Soul is a 10 day course where you explore ways to be right here in this moment and find the space to choose love...for yourself...for those around you...for this life you're choosing to live each day. You'll take photos and journal a bit and notice what you need each day. You'll reconnect with yourself. You'll give yourself the gift of remembering you.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Register right here.

water your (toddler mama) soul

Here,
a pause before the day begins.
Here,
birds insisting this day is still full of beauty.
Here,
fog and rhododendrons and so many shades of green.
Here,
tired but determined eyes.
Here,
a necklace made by little hands.
Here,
a heart holding so much.
Here,
a backyard full of blooming weeds.
Here,
a trust that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

The belief that practicing self-care in small bits of time saves me each day is why I take these photos and pair them with a few words. Sometimes the prompt is “here;” other times I’m just trying to capture the realness, the beauty in the midst of the “to-do list” and the pauses as I move between roles in my life. 

And I love thinking about the me 10 years from now (or even 10 weeks from now) looking back on these visual and written snapshots and remembering that I really was finding my way.

an invitation

Get out a piece of paper and write your own "list of here." You might repeat the word "here" like I've done, letting it begin every sentence or new thought. You might write a paragraph or a list of bullet points. You also might want to take a photo to capture this moment and pair it with your words. This practice can become a beautiful one to turn to when you need some creative self-care.

If you want to share your words, please send them my way. I would love to read them.

***

A little over a year ago, I started writing down the practices, like the "here" practice above, that I use each day to stay grounded in the midst of all the beautiful intensity that is life with a toddler. I knew I wanted to share these practices and my stories of living in the toddler mama trenches in an ecourse of some sort, but I needed to live it for another year before I found the right container.

Water Your Mama Soul is a 10 day course where you explore ways to be right here in this moment and find the space to choose love...for yourself...for those around you...for this life you're choosing to live each day. You'll take photos and journal a bit and notice what you need each day. You'll reconnect with yourself. You'll give yourself the gift of remembering you.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Register right here.

Thank you for catching my stories and showing up here to share your own.

Blessings,

Liz