Mornings, a million kid questions, and other musings

How self care evolves and breathes from day to day, and why, for me, it must.

Earlier this morning I was lugging at least two armfuls of shoes, water bottles, swimsuits, floaties, and other paraphernalia from the car into my house to pack it in a box for the kids’ dad because he’s taking them on a trip to their grandparents’ this weekend. I always make one trip from the car. This works 80% of the time, but the other 20% of the time I know I’m being ridiculous. I do it anyway. I repeat: I always make one trip from the car. It doesn’t matter how much sh** I drop along the way behind me and have to go back and pick up — you will not catch me going back to that car and touching a door again, so help me God.

Trailing behind me this morning was my precocious, curious, and brilliant eight year old, chirping a bunch of largely unanswerable questions. He does this, y’all. He does this most of the time, all day. These questions are always (ALWAYS!) preceded by ‘Mom'?’ no matter how recently he’s asked me something.

I thought I was at peace and experiencing inner harmony until I noticed about a year ago how tersely and/or disinterestedly I tended to respond to these questions. And it still happens sometimes, that’s for damn sure. Today, for example, as sneakers spilled onto the grass and I awkwardly stooped to pick them up while still holding a full arm’s load, he said ‘Mom?’ And I, feeling verrrrry martyr-y and defeated, said ‘…pause:sigh:. ….yes…?’ God, even I could hear my voice rolling its eyes.

Now, amazingly, my children are consistently and utterly undeterred by my immaturity when it comes to asking me any question they want, any time they want. And I do mean anytime. This morning at 5:45, for example, Mila came bustling in and asked at full volume (and, I might add, with a tone of annoyance in her voice) why I sleep wif a fan, and why does it make my room cold, and why am I putting my pillow between my legs like dat. “Unnnnhhhh,” I grunted. Grunting is simply all I have at 5:45 am, kid, I’m sorry.

Sometimes I really do worry I’m going to traumatize my kids and ruin our connection by so consistently failing to get down on my knees, look them deeply in the eyes, and say lovingly ‘Yes, my beloved and magical starchild?’ when they ask me their thousandth question of the day. Especially when the questions start at 5:45 am. I might have one of those moments in me per day, more if I am hydrated. Every once in a while, though, I realize that they don’t seem to give a flying F*** about my vocal eye rolling. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, they’re gonna ask me why water is wet either way, and even if I sigh and humph and harrumph my way through ten of their questions, they’re just going to keep…asking…them. Our car rides are a sonic pingpong of questions, one on top of the other; rinse and repeat. The two of them volley back and forth until my face is twitching. I’m still in the middle of one answer when the next question comes—it’s like one never-ending racquetball game at 1.5x speed.

Back to this morning.

“Mom?” the boy chirps.

“….yes….?” I eye-roll at him with my voice over my shoulder, dropping shoes all over the steps.

“Why did velociraptors have feathers? THAT’S the question.”

I am vaguely and unsuccessfully elbow-pawing at the door handle as he ponders this and waits expectantly for me to respond.

“I don’t know, honey.” (This is my default answer.)

He kicks at the steps while I am struggling with the door.

“You always say you don’t know. Why do you do that? Am I smarter than you?”

“I don’t know, honey.” (Hint: this answer usually only works once, if that, but some days I am dumb and stubborn and I use it many times in a row, disregarding its effectiveness. I’m just soldiering through some days tbh, livin 4 bedtime)

Here’s the thing, though. Some days as of late, I’m so much more present to them and to their aliveness; so much more ready and willing to dialogue with them about all the things they’re wondering, the concepts they’re chewing on, the ideas they’re having. So recently I’ve been practicing some curiosity and examining my life to see what patterns, circumstances, or behaviors might be converging to create this openness, this weird, new, and unfamiliar chill-ness I’m starting to display on occasion. And guys—I’ve figured it out. It’s not fool-proof by any means. Like, life is sometimes just extra hectic and annoying and tiring and therefore I just find a thousand questions extra hectic and annoying and tiring. But y’all—I figured something out.

I’m more likely to have a nice time with my kids, to enjoy them, and feel open to their pace of conversation, to delight in their questions if….

…drumroll please…

…if I’m taking care of myself!

Now you might be thinking, that’s it? I know, I know. I had the same thought. I know this already. But I think this is the first time I’ve noticed that it actually works. I think I’m figuring out what I need, and as I learn how to give it to myself, I’m loving my children better. I may not be doing much more than grunting when they ask me why I’m so tired at the butt crack of dawn, but!! I’m not rolling my eyes as much and sometimes I’m even having conversations with them that delight me to my core and that I mentally celebrate for hours, days, weeks afterwards.

Self care is an interesting topic and has been much covered on Instagram and elsewhere; there are memes and graphics everywhere that chastise us not to conflate self care with face masks and bubble baths. There are also graphics that say “GIRL TREAT YOURSELF”; posts that instruct us to eat the cake, buy the dress, get our nails done, and f*** the haters. The whole internet (or, at least, the corner of Instagram that I used to occupy as an observer before I deleted the app) is a funhouse of different hot takes on self care. I didn’t know what to make of any of that anymore until I got the hell out of there, if I’m honest.

It turns out to care for myself, I have to spend actual and intentional time with myself, getting to truly know myself inside and out. It turns out that for me, self care is an ever evolving, flexible, growing and changing and breathing thing that is different every single day. There are two parts to self care for me. On the one hand there are patterns I’ve been introducing that work much better if they’re consistent and daily; like frequent movement, hydration, good nutrition, and paying attention to sleep. On the other hand there are also more ‘one-off’ gestures of self-care; a precious nap, some quiet time pulling cards, a random hike on a day I just really feel like I need one, or buying myself a really nice candle or flowers. Don’t get me wrong—sometimes these opportunities and these practices are just really hard to come by, and really difficult to pull off. On the days when I ‘don’t have time’ to practice ‘one-off’ type self care, I’ve learned that making that time not is not only nice, but crucial. I will literally flop at everything else unless I figure out what I need and try to give it to myself. Even if that is literally just stretching for 10 minutes and taking 15 deep breaths and noticing them. Even if that’s just deciding that every time I drink water that day, I will take a deep breath and notice how beautiful and helpful water is, and thank it from my heart for cleansing my body. These behaviors can actually be ‘small’ and have exponential benefit.

My relationship to me is vital, and it’s like any other relationship in my life; if I neglect it, it’s not going to go well or feel great. For years I told myself I didn’t need alone time or quiet; that that phase of my life is over now and that I might as well get used to it. And yeah—some days that stuff is harder to find. But now I figure out a way to find it. And if I can’t find it, I make it. Even just ten minutes of it. If I martyr myself on the alter of motherhood, career, or life’s general busy-ness; everyone around me suffers.

TL;DR—self care works if it’s real, if it’s flexible, and if it’s tailored to my actual needs. Some days a salt bath does basically nothing to help me stay in my body, feel better, or process emotions. Other days, it’s God rescuing me. It’s taking me some discernment and *actually* checking in with myself to figure out which days are ‘just take a salt bath real quick’ days and which days are ‘if I don’t find some quiet time, my soul will peter out like a balloon with a hole in it’ days. For me, self care is far more nuanced than just doing things that feel physically nice (some things, like exercise and good nutrition, feel uncomfortable at times) — but also, a major point of breakthrough has been realizing that self care shifts and changes from day to day. And it has to. Some days I’m alone for most of the day. (Not often) More often I’m juggling a hundred tasks, an arm load of shoes and floaties and trash, and two very curious children. Somewhere along the way I decided I’d like to stop feeling bad so much of the time, and for me that has made it necessary to both accept my life—to accept that I can’t have the exact same routines every day, to accept that self care must be flexible AND consistent to really and truly and noticeably work—AND to prioritize the crap out of self care.

So what do I do now? Where do I even start? How do I create a life that embraces both consistency and flexibility? You might be asking yourself this, I imagine. I know I still am! I still feel so curious about how I can better do this. But y’all, it’s working. 😭 I’ll be writing more about this in my next post. To be continued…for now, I’m off to take a salt bath before I do a hip hop step class, which is pretty f***ing hilarious to watch me do. Maybe some day I’ll put a video of that on here. I probably have some emotional work to do first. 😂

My online gathering on 7/7, U R UR GURU, will feature a lot of conversation around this, as well as some practices I’ve been using that are really nourishing me and helping me feel better on a consistent basis. (Hint: one of them is singing bowls!! I’m SO excited about what these are doing for my body, my spirit, my heart, and my mind.) I’d love to have you along. For $30 off, use the code ‘violet’ at checkout.

Sending you love and delightful surprises today.

XO,

Audrey

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Audrey Assad