{"id":1366,"date":"2013-07-04T09:23:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T15:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/2013\/07\/04\/of-the-brave\/"},"modified":"2013-07-04T09:23:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T15:23:32","slug":"of-the-brave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/of-the-brave\/","title":{"rendered":"Home of the Brave"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello, Dearest…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about freedom lately amidst the sight of Old Glory fluttering in the breeze, and the sound of fireworks out in the street at night. Sometimes I dwell on the freedom that used to be \u2013 that taken-for-granted freedom I had B.C. (that\u2019s Before Children). I was once a sleeper-inner. I saw all the latest movies, would immerse myself in a good book for hours, and was a waste-time-just-because-I-had-it kind of girl. Not lazy<\/em> \u2013 but free in a way I can only imagine now that I share my life with a couple of darling preschoolers.<\/p>\n

Have you ever had the kind of day where your two-year-old son put the cat in the washing machine and tried to turn it on {twice}<\/em>, and you only saved the cat in time because you were cleaning finger paint off every surface<\/em> in the bathroom alongside your other child, and the laundry room happens to be next door? Those are the kinds of days that make me long for freedom, or at least a little free time.<\/p>\n

As a mother of preschoolers, it may be the \u201chome of the brave,\u201d but it is definitely not the \u201cland of the free!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

So how do I reconcile the free-as-a-bird woman I used to be with the (lovingly) tied-to-her-two-children mama I now am? I am calling olly-olly-oxen-free on my summer, and claiming some of it just for me!<\/p>\n

My mom friends and I are planning monthly playnights<\/em>, and the diaper-and-drool set is not invited. (Thank you handsome husband!) I have penciled \u201creading\u201d into my calendar, and Tuesday and Thursday evenings I enjoy an hour of pleasure reading that does not center on cartoon pigs or Sesame Street characters. For one hour every afternoon I shamelessly turn the kids loose in the backyard and catch an episode of my favorite HGTV show. The kids enjoy a little fresh air, and we all arrive at snack time with smiles on our faces. And my husband and I have set up a trade with a single mom friend \u2013 she takes our two kiddos overnight once a month, we take her son overnight on a different Friday night.<\/p>\n

My dear sisters in motherhood \u2013 here is a little secret about that \u201ctrapped\u201d feeling most of us encounter from time to time: the only way to step out of the box you are in is to lift the lid, and no one else can do that for you.<\/p>\n

So, when and how do you {or could you} take time to take care of you?<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello, Dearest… I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about freedom lately amidst the sight of Old Glory fluttering in the breeze, and the sound of fireworks out in the street at night. Sometimes I dwell on the freedom that used to be \u2013 that taken-for-granted freedom I had B.C. (that\u2019s Before Children). I was once a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,117],"tags":[33,120,101,36],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","category-wellness","tag-identity","tag-liz","tag-parenting","tag-relationships"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}