Recently, a friend of mine in Facebook shared a link on her timeline. It is about a blog of a mother's lifestyle, the title reads, The Day I Stopped Saying 'Hurry Up'. As I read, a surge of guilt went up upon me at the start but as I continued, I felt relieved and glad that she had made the change.
This mother has a full list of agenda daily and constantly get stranded by ringtones and electronic notifications. These reminded me of what I was liked three years ago when I had Jewel. To being with, I was a very sales driven and work committed person back then. Being young and ambitious, I gave myself very high standards and making sure I always hit the sales target. Having said that, it means that my day was filled with appointments and if required, weekends will be a working day too. My normal routine would be waking up in the morning and hurriedly prepare myself for work and reaching home late, sometimes 10 plus at night. I didn't spend time in the morning to play with Jewel and when I reached home, she would be asleep. If she is still awake, I would be too worn out with fatigue to play with her for long. If weekends were not spent working, I will be at home catching up with my sleep. These kind of working attitude and lifestyle continues until I was pregnant with Ian, it was my changing point.
Hub has been advising me and assuring me that the family doesn't need me to work so hard and spending time with family and kids is more important. I remember vividly the things he kept telling me,' I want our kids to have a healthy family with a positive growing up phase. As it is difficult to have both parents spending equal abundance amount of time with them, I hope you can be the one to do it, as nothing beats having a Mommy besides them to guide them and no one can replace that. All kids love having Mommy around them. I do not need you to contribute your income to the family but I hope you can spend more time with the kids. Look at you now, you are home late almost every other day. Sometimes Jewel has slept. I have heard many of my colleagues regretting and wished they could turn back time to spend more time with their kids. I do not want you to miss out the bits and pieces of their growing up journey, which will make you regret end of the day.' What dawned onto me was when he asked this impactful question,' Do you want to see the kids grow up vertically or horizontally?.' Pausing for a moment, I felt a great pang gripped my heart. At that instance, a thought shook me, I knew I had to make a choice. The call for a change is a must!
Having taken two steps back was uncomfortable but I was determined. All this while I was a workaholic. I felt uneasy and strange when my day had lots of free slots, my phone rang lesser and my calendar looks cleaner. However as days went by, I got used to it. My friends said I sounded and appeared happier, no longer the stressful and weary Chloe. I walked slower, talked more to my Mommy and most of all played with Jewel longer. I realized I have not been having lunch and shopping with my Mommy alone for the longest time. Having Mommy with me feels an indescribable sense of warmth and security. It feels good to hang out with Mommy, thus I believes my kids will want my company too.
I am thankful and appreciates that Hub had pulled me off the reins, allowing me to have that quantity and quality time with the kids and enjoying every single bits of motherhood. It is not every wind that can moves you from your anchorage but Jewel and Ian had blew it off for me. I loves everything I am doing for the family, though I may complain a little sometimes.
My priorities have changed completely, for the better of course. How about you?
No comments:
Post a Comment