Tag: sad

Beyond Baby Steps: How I learned to stop powering through

I couldn’t stop turning the words over in my head. “It’s your life, too,” my friend had said to me. It was an off-hand, supportive reply to me cataloging my overwhelming 24-hour-a-day job as mother to three young daughters. But why couldn’t I let the words go? Was it really my life too? There was so much I enjoyed about…

Beyond Baby Steps: Helping others helped me feel like myself again

by Shawna Gamache Like a lot of moms, I found that surviving pregnancy and early motherhood meant that I put my own needs off as long as I could. And then I just couldn’t anymore. At a certain point, after eight years immersed in raising three young daughters, I could no longer ignore the reality that I was not my…

Beyond Baby Steps: How mama got her voice back

So how does a completely immersed mom claw herself out of the abyss of early motherhood? For me, it started with writing a book and ended with raising a hammer. Let’s start with the Book… Last November I told my family that I would be writing a novel that month. You see, every November there’s a month-long writers marathon called…

How do you know you’re done?

According to family lore, my parents always just knew they were done after two babies. It was crystal clear from the moment my little sister was born: family complete. End of story. Throughout my own parenting journey, I’ve heard a similar refrain from other parents, usually uttered in a tone of outright certainty: I’m one and done. I’m two and through. Three…

Higher Highs and Lower Lows

Finally we have the true roller coaster that is parenting. It can lift you, windswept, to breathtaking heights you never knew existed, and then drop you so fast it leaves you spinning and wanting to throw up.