Hide the chocolate!
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The other day, I was eating a piece of chocolate I'd been given, and I found this written inside the wrapper - You’re eating this while hiding from your kids, aren’t you? I snapped a photo of it and sent it to my kids with the word ‘Probably’ written on it.
It reminded me of a trip my family took to my parents' lake cabin. Without telling anyone, I had hidden some chocolate behind a framed photograph on a shelf. My husband found it and promptly told the rest of the family what I'd done.
May is the greatest and the busiest month. In just this month, we have: two weddings, seven birthdays within our family, including one of our dogs, Mother's Day, a college graduation, and a handful of high school graduations.
This week alone is packed full with a preschool field day, wedding decorating, preschool graduation, rehearsal dinner, and a wedding.
During such a busy time, it's more important than ever to take care of yourself in at least one way, if not several different ways. You might want to read that again.
Major confession loading…
I'm about to admit something my whole family knows, but I have never actually said out loud. I hide chocolate from my loved ones. Not all chocolate, because obviously, if I've gotten the chocolate as a gift, they've already seen it. That stays out in plain sight and every now and then I'll share a piece of it. But it's a rare day when I don't have a chocolate stash somewhere in my house.
The chocolate is something I do for myself. And during this busiest of all months, I have to be sure I'm making time for comforting myself, as well as those around me.
I've watched others who give and give and give to the people around them, which is awesome, but it's sort of like when you're on an airplane and you hear the speech about in the event that the cabin loses air pressure, you need to attach your own oxygen mask first before helping others. If you don't take care of yourself, you have nothing to give to those you love.
It's only Wednesday and so far this week, I've been able to practice yoga three times. That's amazing and rare. But especially during a week where one of our children is getting married, it’s important for me to fit in a little self-care so that I can be there for those who might need me.
Fittingly enough, yesterday’s yoga practice started with the instructions to wrap yourself in a hug. I was to “sit in my own embrace.” It was nice. And needed. And I'm not about to admit the amount of chocolate I've consumed already this week.
I love that in the past four days, we've had three drop-ins from different kids. These visits I also count as self-care.
All this is just to encourage you to find something - anything - that helps ground you during stressful times. Looking at crazy times as a challenge, as in, you just watch me get through these next two weeks, rather than as an impossible task, helps.
And at the very least, you should really be hiding some chocolate.