Can I get an Amen?!?! I feel like moms are often the unsung heroes. There are not fancy banquet events that give out golden statues to moms. As a society we award many individuals such as actors, athletes, musicians etc but what about those raising up the next generation of world changers? I love to celebrate and honor other humans whenever I see them doing things commendable so I would not want to do away with awarding those other individuals but my heart goes out to the behind the scenes world changers who faithfully show up day after day often living in what feels like is a never-ending movie of Groundhog’s Day.

Perhaps because I get them. I see them. I walk in their shoes so I have been familiar with the loneliness, exhaustion, frustration, boredom, and also their joy, gratitude, and excitement. I have 2 funny stories that prompted this post.

So my high school daughter texted me from her after school theater practice. “MOOOOMMMMM, I am so craving horchata. I have a 20 minute break. Can you bring it to me now?” I don’t answer immediately which is offensive/annoying to my children because they think my only job is being their mom and I must put down anything I am doing or pursuing to answer their beckon call. I am also more of an unplugged person (which is weird for my 24/7 plugged in children) which further frustrations my teens. Since there is not immediate gratification of a yes response, my phone rings. I get the same plea. I explain that I am busy and I cannot just drop what I am doing to be her Uber Eats. And that doing so would also take the limited time remaining before I have to pick up my youngest from school. I practically died from her response. “Well, what are you even doing anyway?” I am dead. SERIOUSLY!?! It takes all the self control within me to not give the usual mom speech of being inconvenienced for 9 months, labor, wiped your butt for 5 years etc. I just laugh. I could be pissed but she literally does not know. She has never walked in my shoes. I am just the one who buys her shoes. 😉 I consider texting her all I did today while she was at school but I realize she may get the idea and stop reading.

So fast forward 2 weeks to yesterday. My almost 14 year old son asks if I can take my whiny chihuahua and my other dog on a car ride right at that very moment as he is leaving my school. He feels bad my dog is crying because he wants to ride in the car. I say no. He replies, “What are you doing anyway?” I resist the urge to fall on the ground in hysterical laughter. I am noticing a pattern with my teens. In that moment I was initially offended but I choose to stop and think. The truth is that they literally are clueless. They have not walked in my shoes so they have no idea what I do all day. My daughter said to me, “Mom, it just seems sus (I think that is how you spell the new slang word that is short for suspicious which by the way I love to say back to them to make them cringe and puke in their mouths) since you don’t tell us what you do”. I reply, “I eat all your favorite ice cream and binge watch Netflix”. I have to add the disclaimer that I am joking otherwise they think I am serious but their side eyes say that they do not believe me anyway. I retold this story to a friend and she, “And so what if you were doing that.” She gets that if a mom wants to take a break and enjoy something then she should and I agree.

These stories are what inspired this writing. Once he leaves I decide to jot down everything I do today just to help them see. I decide not to text or even tell them. I think after this post I will write it out on a big poster board and present it at dinner for fun. 😉 I get that the fun is all for me.

I had a lot of fun recording it all. I have been doing this vocation/life calling for over 20 years now and I have never done this. I wanted to make sure this was just a reflection of a very typical day and not try to do 100 more things to make them feel bad. So here is what an average day looks like:

6:00-6:45: Hang out with Jesus via prayer, Bible reading and journaling

6:45-7:00: Walk Boots (whiny chihuahua) to his favorite bush to pee

7-8: tidy downstairs

8- pooped (I had to add this as having 2 sons, it is a big part of their conversations)

8:05- grabbed dirty towels from kids bathroom and daughter’s room and youngest dirty laundry bin. Turned off the lights left on in teen’s room

8:10- started a load of laundry with these items

8:15: turn on praise music for a dance party while I tidy downstairs more

8:30: put away birthday decorations from daughter’s 16th party last weekend. Took out food waste and recycling. Put away last night’s dinner and wipe down counters. (3 of the things were forgotten chores by teen that will not get paid for now)

8:30-8:40 Make and eat breakfast

8:40- 8:50: tidy downstairs more

8:50-9:05: vacuum carpet, empty vacuum filter, clean sponge filter and set outside to dry

9:05-9:10: send out encouraging texts to 3 people and my monkey chad (a weird name they call each other) children

9:10-9:30 Team Roundup (solo style). This is a practice I did when my kids were still little and at home. I would set the timer for 5 minutes and we would all work as quickly as possible to clean up a given space. They would also take whatever they found that was theirs and put it away.

9:30-9:50: meditation. This is part of my self care for this season. My spiritual director asked me what 2 things I want to do daily for my self care. I said 20 minutes of meditation (I used the centering prayer app from contemplative outreach) and walk 1 mile. While meditating an encouragement came to my heart. For the last year I have allowed fear to cripple me and these 2 practices of self care are going to give me strength (which is my word of the year to focus on. Go to oneword.com for yours), kinda like rehabbing my soul and body. I have allowed a toxic relationship to taint my year and I am finally putting up boundaries to limit their access to my heart.

9:50-10:00: Text 2 gals from our young adults group

10:00-10:15: sweep laundry room/empty laundry room trash

10:15-11:00 take dogs for a 1 mile walk/”love walk” with hubby. That is what I call anytime he chooses to walk with me. This is not speed walking just an average pace. The break from tasks and the fresh air and sunshine is soooo restorative.

11:00-11:30: went to the post office to mail a gift to my youngest’s biological mom

11:30-11:45: went to Walgreens to pick up daughters’s prescription, buy Trollis for my son to replace the ones my youngest son swiped, buy batteries for the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors

11:45-12:10: rode bike half mile to pick up son and his friends from school.

12:10-12:15: sit down and eat lunch

12:15-12:25 prepare sourdough pizza crust dough balls for dinner

12:25-12:35: filled essential oil diffusers to help it smell better in here 😉

12:40- 1:00: folding and putting away laundry

1:15-2:15: hand wash our few days worth of dishes that can’t go in the dishwasher. Clean sink and wipe counters

2:15-2:45: help youngest son with his big emotions and work through his meltdown

2:45-2:55: make guac out of leftover half avocado and eat it

2:55-3:00 Get youngest and his friend a snack

3:00-3:40: Make toffee for my oldest daughter since we are going to visit her at college tomorrow

3:40-3:45: clean up kitchen

3:45-4:00: fold and put away laundry. I reminded teen son to come downstairs quietly since dad is napping. He replied, “Do you want me to float down the stairs. You guys nap twice a day.” I replied, “I usually nap once a day for 30 minutes and you would too if you worked as hard as us.”

4:00-4:20: clear counters of stuff

4:20-5:10: fell down YouTube rabbit hole. I couldn’t nap since we have to tag team so someone can watch our adventurous youngest so I chilled and watched FrugalFit mom. It was fun but truly media is not usually part of my daytime. I used to waster hours on Facebook but I deleted it. I have a private instagram right now with just my family that I like to use to print Chatbooks. So I do not scroll anymore but I do like to laugh at the funny reels my family send me.

5:20-6:20: make homemade pizza sauce in my Ninja and make pizzas and cheese bread for dinner.

6:20-6:30 eat my dinner

6:30-7:10: clean up kitchen

7:10-7:40: battle with my youngest. Sometimes just plain ole obedience is a struggle

7:40-9:00: bedtime process for youngest which includes bath, snack, brush teeth and reading books. This usually is 6:30-8:00 but running late.

9:00-9:10: shower

This is a very typical day as the home manager. No wonder I love bedtime so much- I am pooped. I try once my youngest is in bed to stop working. There is always work to be done. I read in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality that everyone will die with an unfinished to do list. I know it may sound morbid but it was encouraging to recognize I have limits and to embrace them.

Some things I learned from this activity:

• Shoot! I am a superhero. It is affirming to recognize all I do to help our home and family run smoothly
• I am glad I am practicing self care. This is a new thing. I wish younger mama Kimi did this. I would have been in a better place.
• I need to empower and enlist my teens to do more. To compare just the time that I sit to the hours they sit- I need to share the load more. Also the amount of free time they have compared to mine was insightful. There rebuttal is that this is my job as the parent, which speaks to the entitlement creeping in. We are a family and I do not expect things to be equal. But sharing some of their 8 plus hours a day of free time will not kill them.
• This made me love the practice of Sabbath all the much more. I try to practice Sabbath (fancy religious word for taking a day off) Friday after dinner to Saturday after dinner where I try to unplug/power down my phone, ditch chores/work and focus on doing things I delight in. Seeing how hard I work all week, I desire to give my soul and body this time to just be.
• I want to bring back a life-giving practice. Seeing that I am the one with our very busy youngest child the most- I could use a weekly break. Saturday used to be my sleep-in day and then once I got up I just chilled in my bedroom with the door locked. This is a happy place for me as an introvert. I would read, journal, write etc until noon. Then we tag teamed and then I was “on duty” with our youngest for the next chunk of time til dinner. He takes a lot of energy. Playing alone for him is hard so if he is not outside busy with neighbor friends then he is often asking, “Can you play with me?”

As I thought through this day I wanted to encourage other moms in this. Hopefully this will be in a book one day to reach many more mamas but for now, I’ll pass it onto some mamas I know. So this was a very typical day. But then I thought back to younger Kimi mama and all the other moms with babies and toddlers in tow. So then you multiply this schedule by like 100. But I now get the luxury of peeing alone and in peace and I no longer wipe anyone’s butt. As full as my day was, it used to be a lot fuller with little ones in tow.

Then I thought of the homeschooling mamas who do all this plus educate their children.

Then I thought of the working moms who have all this to do once they get home from work. Staying at home is already like having 2 full time jobs so for the working mamas- it is like they are working 3 full time jobs. And some of them literally are working multiple paid jobs and then come home to do all this other stuff.

I think how hard it is to be a home manager on its own but many women do it alone. I have an AMAZING husband. He is all hands on deck. He helps me anyway I ask for it and many times when I do not ask. He does so much to contribute to our home and family. First of all he works outside of the home for income so I do not have to. Home is my happy place and I feel wildly thankful that I get to do that. That alone is enough for me. But he also does all the vehicle maintenance (including our van, his truck, our daughter’s car, and our camper), pool and hot tub maintenance, yard care, appliance care (literally took apart and fixed our clothes dryer and dishwasher yesterday), electronics/technology care (I am an old soul so installing protective software on our devices, creating my blog, etc – that is all him), all the bills and budget (I hate numbers), and my handyman who hangs shelves, paints etc. I feel so thankful that we are a team.

We are in the presence of superheroes all the time!!!