I was at the grocery store loading up my bags in my car the other day, and I looked to the side and saw a mama putting her toddler into the car with a good amount of force. I’m not talking child abuse here, just a little bit more aggression than is typically needed. I didn’t judge. I KNEW. I had been there and I felt for her. It immediately brought me back to one of my worst, most frustrating parenting days.

I think my kids were probably two and three and a half. I needed milk and probably diapers and a couple other random things, so we walked into the grocery store and I grabbed a basket. (Rookie move: always grab the cart.) We walked around and loaded our things in and my kids were being crazy. Running around, grabbing stuff, just being normal. But it was almost dinner time, and my patience was low. I’m lugging a gallon of milk and a loaded down basket and trying to corral them close to me. My son was…how do I phrase this?

Oh yes. Being a complete psycho.

So we get to the checkout line and there is a line, and I put my stuff on the belt and he takes off running, down the aisle behind me. I’m standing with my three-year old and thinking, “do I leave her here and run? WHAT? Tell me?” I turn quick, drop the basket, and in the process my wallet drops and all the money and change falls out. I freeze, yell at her to “stay and don’t move and I’ll be back!” and run down the end of the looooooong aisle and grab my son. He thinks it’s funny and runs faster. (Not funny.) I haul him into a side hold and want to die. He’s struggling and crying, I’m so freakin’ angry, and I run back to my daughter. I somehow clean up my wallet off the ground, gripping me to my side in a fireman hold, and pay, and I am seeing red. The cashier (bless her heart), sees I am losing it and bags my things and asks if I need help (no thank you, I say! I just want to get home and kill my kid!) She tells me it will be okay. I don’t agree.

I get to the car with a cart that the cashier had found, with my kids, and without my sanity. I put him into his car seat SO HARD and I am muttering through gritted teeth about how long I will put him into timeout and how ANGRY I am. The whole way home I tell him this, and I am in tears and just done. At home I go to get him out of his car seat with anger, because he needs to KNOW how mad I am and that he made me so angry, and as I am unbuckling him he falls to the side onto the garage floor and hits his head. And I’m mad about it. I’m mad because now he is crying and I can’t punish him and I just want him to know how hard that was for me in that store. He needs to know that. Instead, I have to console him, which I don’t want to do.

I don’t remember what happened next. I probably got him an icepack and unloaded the groceries and made dinner. I probably gave them baths and put them to bed and then after thinking long and hard, felt guilty for it all. Guilty for  the things I said. Guilty for not knowing how to make it better. Guilty for making the decisions that set it all off in the first place. Guilty for not wanting to console him when he fell because I really wanted to punish him more.

I look back at that mama and see how hard it was, daily life, and how each moment often called for more than I was capable of at that time. I wish I could tell her to just take a breath, take each moment, and keep going. And you know what? She did that. She did that day in and day out until her kids got a little older and it got a little easier to go to the grocery store. I no longer have to chase kids in the grocery store or put kids in timeout (much, ha!), but those days are still inside of me. I remember them when I see other’s dealing with the same pressures, and I KNOW. Those days are hard. Babies and toddlers and grocery stores (and restaurants) are so hard.

Life is hard, and so are you. We can do this.

It was in the early hours last Monday morning as we were leaving for the airport when my husband said to me, “there’s been a shooting in Vegas.” 

My first words were, “you mean, like a single shooter type of thing?”

He shook his head as he kept reading on his phone. The details kept coming in as we rode to the airport.

Biggest mass shooting in American history.

50+ people dead.

It happened on the Vegas strip. Where we were heading.

These details, over and over, as we were heading to the same place where it took place, incited a huge fear. Carefully held plans that we were counting on, were in the air. For awhile we wondered if we should change our trip, maybe reroute elsewhere? I had won this trip through Monat and there was to be a huge gathering in a couple of days.

Now it felt wrong to show up and celebrate.

Flying into Vegas not 14 hours after the shooting was surreal. You could see Mandalay Bay from the runway and the uncertainty was palpable in the air. We had been cut off from the news in the air, and not knowing the details was unnerving. We had previous plans to rent a car and drive out to the Grand Canyon, and I am glad we did. The strip was shut down and it felt wrong to be there. That time in the desert, hiking the Canyon and focusing on something that had been there for millions of years, feeling the peace of something so vast and grand? It was everything we needed.

By the time we made it back to Vegas, to our hotel just a couple of blocks from the tragedy, it was late Tuesday night. I was apprehensive driving back. Again, it feels weird going somewhere to have fun in a place that saw so much terror. I had watched the news the night before and got to see some of the stories of the survivors, and those that did not. Truthfully, I don’t watch the news that much. I’m not sure if I am too sensitive, or what, but hearing horrifying things really sticks with me for a long time. Yet I feel I owed it to those that suffered? I watched the various news clips and saw the faces of those lost and it still hurts, and will for a really long time. As it should.

The weird thing is, once back in the city and throughout the next two days of training and dinners and nights out, things are oddly and surrealy…normal. Life goes on, people continue with vacations, and those that work and live there just carry on. Even when you can see the shot out windows where the shooter sat, even when your Uber driver tells you he looks for the faces of those he dropped off at the concert a couple of nights before, life just continues. The showgirls preen in the street. The fountains at the Bellagio play on to happy music. The shows continue as if nothing happened. The only things different were the billboards saying, ” Thank you for being there,” and “#VegasStrong.”

I struggled with what to post, what to say, how happy should I seem? Because I was happy. And sad. And shocked. And struggling to figure out how I felt. There is no protocol for how to feel after a tragedy like that. You know how life has changed so completely for the people involved, and you feel so deeply for them, yet not much is different for you.

I wanted to help, somehow, but I couldn’t think of anything.

In the end we stayed at the Paris hotel, and enjoyed ourselves. Yet that enjoyment was not what we originally thought. It was tinged with sadness and fear and uncertainly. I am okay with that. The people who lost their lives and suffered deserve that. Yet I believe they most likely wouldn’t have wanted the person who took their lives to WIN. Fear can’t win. There will always be terror and tragedy and crazy people, unfortunately. Yet life goes on.

Being in Vegas last week was ultimately not what I thought it would be, but it was these things…surreal, sad, happy, fun, blissful, terrifying, uncertain, joyful. So many mixed emotions and feelings mixed up into one trip that I most likely will never forget, and for all the reasons I never fathomed before that Sunday night.

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I’ve been doing a lot of reflection lately (see this post about my new morning routine!), and I’ve figured out that I am way to strict on myself, and that robs me of a lot of happiness. Just from talking to those around me (mostly women), I find that we all have these hard and fast rules about how we live, and the second life strays away from that, we feel like failures.

Take motherhood. For me, my rules look like this:

Feed them a hot breakfast each morning. Volunteer at their school. Be present, always. Never be distracted. Limit their tv. Play with them when they ask. Feed them organic food. Make them happy. Never yell. Stay off my phone around them. Have an answer for everything. Never let them down. Have fun activities planned. Create amazing childhood memories. Be crushed when they are sad.

I could go on! I take this motherhood job seriously, and I want to raise smart kids that are honest and intelligent and kind. I don’t take this job lightly, and sometimes the pressure is crushing. I won’t bore you how many nights I have lain awake regretting something I’ve said or worrying about them in some capacity.

Yet two things have helped me with this.

1. I read an article once that asked one simple question. “Do they feel loved”” That is the ONE goal at the end of this whole parenthood journey. A million things can go wrong and we can all mess up, but at the end of the day, do they feel loved? This is my new benchmark for motherhood. 
2. I also laugh because often when my husband is away I do things very differently. Meal planning goes out the window and I make them either ‘breakfast for dinner’ or hot dogs and macaroni and cheese each night. We even eat it in front of the tv and have a ‘carpet picnic’, as they call it. I feel like I am being the laziest mother alive, but when I tell them this they cheer. They love it.                            Sometimes kids aren’t really complicated after all. They just want to feel loved and secure and the rest can fall into place. 

Another place I have a hard time bending my rules is when it comes to my health and fitness routine.

Some of them include: work out hard on the days you plan with no room for excuse. Eat the meals you planned and make sure you hit your macros each day. NO wine on the weekdays, no excuses. Drink 3 bottles of water per day. Eat paleo as much as possible. Stress over extra meals or unplanned desserts. Worry constantly when life throws a wrench in your plans and you can’t do any of this.

I learned a lot over the summer when we moved and I had to let go of a lot of rigidness. I tossed aside my macros and just ate intuitively. I worked out when I could, and tried not to worry when I couldn’t. While I know I feel better when I DO have a routine and can work out regularly and eat as healthy as I can, the world does not stop if I can’t.

My new health and wellness rules include trying my best. Being more flexible. I try my best to work out when I plan to and eat healthily as much as I can. Each day and each workout I do is a plus. Every healthy meal or smoothie or bottle of water is a plus. It means I am trying, and that’s all that matters.

Tell me, what rules could you modify to make your life better? Are you rigid and controlled like me, or do you give yourself more of a break?

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