Waking Up

Every day since we lost Mabel (two months ago today) I have woken up and thought about what needed to change in my life.  This gut urge to make things different, every single thing, is a force I cannot ignore.  It feels as though everything must be different, even down to the placement of my bed in my room — or I feel too much like the “old me” and get itchy and twitchy and begin to wonder what all this was for…

So each morning, I think about change.

As a mom to special needs children, change is usually the last thing I am looking for, but here I am stalking “different” like a cat.  Right now there is a literal and spiritual upheaval going on, and everyone in the house knows it.  These change-phobic kids seem to sense the same urge as I do, and are trying their best to go with this mama’s flow right now.

Our morning routines, having found no safe haven from my moratorium on “what once was“, have entirely changed as well.  As a homeschooling family we have no need to rush out the door (thank goodness), but we find ourselves enjoying each other in the mornings more than ever.  We linger in the sun streaming in from the window, we snuggle in bed together just a bit longer, we play first and work later.  It’s new, and it’s effective.  We lay on the porch and talk to bugs and laugh at each other.  It inspires love and peace instead of the old stress and anxiety that mornings used to bring.

For so many years I spent my mornings waking up already exhausted, kids already fighting, house already a mess and my heart already wishing for escape.  I couldn’t wait for the moment that school began so the kids would be gone and oh finally a break.  This is so common and normal and so understandable.  We get busy, we run late, we miss alarms, we can’t find clothes, we have tantrums, we fall down.  We fall so many times.  But making a change in the mornings has been my first step to falling less.  Our changes aren’t a list of tips or a how-to on making the family happy, but more of a change of perspectives.  Re-framing what seems so important, and asking myself if it really is.

Each moment of my morning, of my all day long, feels like an opportunity.  A chance to mold these sweet little mounds of clay with their questions and attitudes and never-full bellies, into people who’s souls will change the world one day.

People who will dream big, and when the storms come in they will lasso those storms and ride them without letting the storms get in their heads to make them doubt.  They will search out and see the miracles in those storms.  They will know that storms were meant to make them dream bigger than ever, and they will live endurance and they will embrace change and they will know how a good morning starts.

It starts with waking up.

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This article about making mornings easier is part of the Kraft Bagel-fuls “Break up with your Breakfast Routine” sweepstakes.  Visit BlissfullyDomestic.com for all the fabulous details. I am being compensated for sharing my family’s story, not to promote a particular product.  Watch the video below (subscribers click thru for video) to see what other moms are doing to break up with their breakfast {it’s so cute, seriously}.

BlissTV- Morning Routines from Blissful Media Group on Vimeo.