How I do it: Pt 1. - My Village

When I reached out to my readers and asked what you all wanted to see more of on the blog, one of my readers emailed me to say he wanted to know how I do it. How I raise two kids and work full time and juggle everything, and not kill anyone.
I tried to put it all into one post, but it ended up just being a jumbled mess of confusion and cuss words. Much like My life.
For a little while, Monday Momisms will be taken over by a series on how I do it.
This is part one.

If I've learned anything since I had kids, it's that the old saying "It takes a village to raise a baby" is not only annoying, it is true.

As much as I am a single mother, and I do the majority of the day to day survival and life stuff by myself, I don't do this all by myself. I have a village. Over the years, my group of supporters has changed. It's grown and shrank, morphed and adapted. It once included primarily blood related family members, and it has since become mostly friends, or more appropriately, my chosen family.

A special group of amazing people who have held my hand, calmed my fears, opened my wine and told me when I most needed to hear it, that I was doing a good job. That I was a good mom.

Those words can be a life raft on dark days, in the middle of struggle filled months, and on nights when you're tear stained and exhausted and honestly don't think you can make it one more minute, like you're failing every time you turn around.

My village has been there. Through illnesses and hospital trips and first days of daycare, which later became first days of school. On evenings when selfish bosses demanded I work longer hours, on mornings when coffee was so dearly needed. 

Sometimes just by sending a text that has nothing at all to do with parenting and reminding me I'm not just a mom, I'm also a person, they've lifted me up.

You need a village, you need a crew.

You need a devoted selection of ride or die homies that would do for you and your children like they were their own, and you have to remember to return the favor.

The fact of the matter is, there is no doing this shit alone.

We can all be strong and we can all be tough, and you can be the most tireless, hardcore bitch out there, but at some point you are going to feel like you're out of your league. Like the question is so impossibly hard, and everyone has the answer but you.

At some point, you're going to feel incapable.

And that's when your village is there.

To answer the phone, to come to your door, to wipe your tears and do for you the little things that you just cannot do yourself right now, so that you can focus on the bigger job at hand.

Sometimes that bigger job is simply surviving.

Remember that when your best friend has their first baby.

Or when one of your friends becomes a single parent.

Something as simple as bringing them a gallon of milk when they're out and just too tired to go to the store, can change their whole day.

And just in case no one has said it to you today, you're doing a good job.

You're a good parent.