Reflecting on a Week of Me Time

Looking back at the first week of mantras and tasks for the moms who’re participating in the Living The Self-Care Challenge, I feel pretty good. To my surprise, I was actually doing some of them already, like putting on my radio station (NPR, not music – I don’t think my kids realize radio stations actually play music in the mornings!) and making a “did do” list at the end of the day.

However, I’m not so great about some of the others.

The “eat what you want” challenge went unattempted. What I really, really want is to eat my scrambled eggs hot out of the pan, with a side of just-perfect-brown toast melting and oozing butter and honey. However, that particular challenge came on a Monday, and I knew with getting the kids dressed and out the door/on the bus it was destined to fail. So instead I whipped up a cocktail for myself after they were in bed, which was pretty nice too, if not quite as wholesome as scrambled eggs.

It’s been fun hearing about friends who decided to do the challenge too. While we all talk about being over-committed and overtired, it’s relatively rare for us to talk about strategies for putting ourselves first. If we do once in awhile eat dessert first, we do it on the sly (and probably feel guilty about it later on).

You’d think I would have learned my lesson three and a half years ago, when my youngest son was a baby. Between taking care of my older son and working a steady 25 hours a week, I neglected myself and wound up with postpartum depression. It wasn’t diagnosed until the baby was about a year old, and by that time I was crying all the time and unable to “get a grip” like I thought I should.

Interestingly, many people seem to assume they would see a fellow mom struggling like that and be able to help. But I was pretty good at not letting anyone else know – as I suspect most of us are. This challenge has been a reminder that I don’t want to wind up on antidepressants again if I can help it, so I’m pretty motivated to get into better self-care habits.

Then again, for the first seven days I was living in fear of the post that said “Go to bed on time!” Today it appeared. Now begins the real challenge.

By Amy De La Hunt, Health Blogger for SmartParenting