Tell us about you:
My name is Kristin, I’m 29 years
old. I’ve been happily married for 4 years and recently became a mother to
little miss Chabela who was born on February 3rd of this year! I was born and
raised in Atascadero, and after leaving the county (and country) during my
college days I decided to move back to the area and “settle down”.
What does a regular day look like
for you?
3:00am – Feed Chabela
4:45am – Wake up and pump (This is
peak pumping time for me, and as a working mom, I’ve gotta keep that supply up!
5:05am – Wake up husband so we can
get ready to go to the gym. We have our pre-gym routine down. We get dressed,
he warms up the car while I try to change Chabela’s diaper and get her in her
car seat without waking her (never works). I grab the water bottles and diaper
bag, while he carries Chabela, I walk a few steps ahead of him, turning down
all the lights so she doesn’t wake up, but leaving enough lights on so we can
see where we are going. I open the front door and car door so he can buckle her
seat it and off we go.
5:30am – CrossFit Class begins.
Chabela is usually content in her car seat, either asleep or drifting off.
7:00am – we’re home and both getting
ready for work. I absolutely love that we get ready for work at the same time.
It’s tricky because we’re both in the bathroom and taking turns keeping Chabela
happy, but that’s what I love—it’s a try partnership.
7:20am – Kisses all around and we’re
off to work! We take turns dropping Chabela off at her daycare.
8:00am – 4:00pm Work (MINDBODY) with
lots of pumping sessions and texts to the hubbies sprinkled throughout my day
4:30pm – I rush home to pick up
Chabela and get some time in with her before she’s asleep for the day. I LOVE
picking her up from daycare, seeing her smile and giving her hugs and cuddles
is the best.
5:00pm – I spend a few minutes
studying Chabela’s daycare sheet and calculating how much milk she’s eaten, how
often she’s had a BM, and if she’s sleeping well at daycare, and then it’s
Chabela time. My husband usually gets home around this time too. We soak up our
time with her while she’s awake.
5:30pm – start dinner, which is
usually mostly prepped and I just need to put meat on the grill or heat up the
pre-cut veggies.
6:00pm – Dinner. Chabela is usually
ready for a nap at this time, so this is my husbands and my time to
connect—chatting about how our days went and just enjoying each other’s
company.
7:30pm – clean up and prep for the
next day. Freezing the day’s milk and washing bottles and pump for tomorrow,
packing my lunch and her diaper bag, prepping dinner for tomorrow, etc.
8:00pm bed time. I know it’s early,
but we get up early too
How do you manage to balance life, work
and being a mom?
I love my job and am a very
ambitious person, which was fine before having a baby. But now that I’ve got a
little one I need to be very careful and intentional about how I spend my time.
I’ve set rules for myself so that I don’t let work bleed into my family time.
Working on weekends, checking emails from home, and making to-do lists during
dinner is a habit I do not want to get into. I leave work at 4:00pm and am
committed to not staying late. I leave my computer in the car when I get home
so I’m not tempted to check-in on any projects. I don’t send emails over the
weekend or at night. There have been times when I wanted to shoot off a quick
email while it was on my mind, but I can’t. I can’t let myself fall into that
habit. And even though I spend the whole weekend thinking about that email I
needed to send, I’m glad I didn’t – I have to train myself to let go during the
weekends and evenings and it’s hard now, but it will get easier.
As far as getting everything done,
well for starters, I hired a house cleaner to come once a month. It helps keep
me sane, and allows me to spend more time with family. Also, I’ve become very
organized with meal prep, and grocery shopping. I plan the coming week’s meals
on Saturday and go grocery shopping so we have everything on hand. I make big
dinners so I can take left overs for lunch the next day. When things don’t go
as planned, I try to have backups and stay flexible. We can grab subway or in n
out for dinner, I can email my boss and let her know I’ll be in a few minutes
late, etc. It’s not the end of the world. Lastly, to balance it all, I share
the responsibility with my husband. He is just as much a parent to Chabela as I
am, and we share the work. At first this was hard for me because I’m a very
independent, I-can-do-anything type of person. When my husband offered to take
Chabela to daycare 3 days a week, I initially wanted to say “Thanks, but I got
it. Don’t worry.” And 80% of the time I’m sure I would have been fine taking
her, but I realized that we are partners in this, and I need to let him be a
Dad too. It’s good for him, it’s good for me, and it’s good for Chabela.
When did you know you wanted
to be a mom? Was it something you always knew or was there a certain
moment?
To be completely honest, the thought
of having kids was something I always battled with. Of course I wanted to be a
mom, but I was terrified. I was a great aunt and thought maybe that was my
calling—to help my sister’s raise their kids. I don’t need my own, do I? I’m
also a career woman, and didn’t understand how it could be possible to do both.
My mother was a stay-at-home mom, both of my sisters are SAHMs, and the life of
a working mom was not something that had been modeled for me. I believed I
could handle it (like I mentioned, I’m an independent, I-can-do-it-all kinda
gal), but there was part of me that thought maybe I was just stupid to think it
was possible. Maybe I was just naïve and trying to work and be a mom would be
the end of me.
When my husband and I would talk
about having kids, I would always say “we’ll start trying next year”. After 3
years, it was my husband who helped me finally make the decision to go off
birth control. I needed his support to make the leap—knowing that no matter how
hard it would be, he would always love me and we were in this together! 3
months later I was pregnant.
How has motherhood
changed you?
I don’t sweat the little things and
have learned to be more flexible. In that sense, I’m less anxious.
On the other hand, my anxiety is
through the roof, always feeling like I’m forgetting something or like at any
moment my world is gonna explode!
What's the hardest thing about
being a mother? The most rewarding?
Hardest thing: you can’t win, ever.
It’s this constant battle of feeling like you’re not doing enough, and at the
same time you’re doing too much! I shouldn’t hold her so much or I’ll spoil
her, she needs to learn to fall asleep on her own…But…I should hold her more,
so she knows she’s loved and doesn’t feel alone and abandoned. I’m not good
enough at keeping the house clean and in order….But, I spend too much time
cleaning and keeping the house in order when I should just enjoy her…the list
NEVER ends.
Most Rewarding: Knowing that I’m
providing a safe, loving home for her where she is free to be exactly who she
is and where she knows that she is loved for being exactly she is, is the best
thing I could ever do in life.
What was your biggest fear about
becoming a mother and what is your biggest fear as a mother now?
THEN: My biggest fear was that
I would worry about everything! That I would check on her every 5 minutes to
make sure she was breathing, that I wouldn’t be able to leave her with anyone
once I went back to work, and that I wouldn’t be able to let go of control.
Now: That she won’t live loved. She
is loved. And I pray every day that she would know and believe that truth. That
she wouldn’t buy into the lies of this world that are constantly telling her
she’s not good enough, but that she would know that she is enough and she is
loved exactly how she is.
Do you ever have "how the heck
am I going to this!?" moments?
YES! becoming a mom did not come
natural to me. I’m the youngest of four in my family, with basically no
babysitting experience. I am independent, ambitious, and career-driven so it
was difficult to all of a sudden have another human being 100% dependent on me
for all needs, and to be thrown into a new role with little experience and no
idea what the heck I was doing. I cried… a lot…okay, every day... I felt like a
failure.
I remember asking myself if God had
made some kind of mistake…maybe I wasn’t supposed to have kids, maybe I wasn’t
made for this, maybe I was supposed to just focus on my career, maybe I was
stupid for thinking I could be a “successful” mom with such little experience,
I wasn’t cut out for this, I bought off more than I could chew...But it was too
late. I hung in there, leaned on my husband more than I ever thought I would,
and learned to have compassion for myself. Of course I still struggle with
feeling like I’m a failure and not a good enough mom, but I know I love her and
I know that becoming a mother was no accident. Here I am, exactly who and where
I’m supposed to be.
What's the best piece of advice you
have been given?
Not to worry about what everyone
thinks. Make your own decisions for what’s best for you and your family. No one
else.
Biggest worry about your
child's/children's future?
That she won’t have the confidence
to pursue her dreams, to really, full-heartedly, go after what she wants in
life.
What would you say to a woman who is
feeling down about herself as a mom?
You’re doing the best you can and
that’s enough.
Do you feel like social media has a
positive or negative (or both) influence on motherhood?
Negative. Nobody puts a photo
of themselves with no make-up, bags under their eyes from no sleep, and spit up
on their shoulder as their profile picture. EVER. Social media has glamorized
motherhood, and you know what? So far, it’s not been glamourous. That being
said, I am totally guilty of it, too.
Have you
ever been in a situation (or witnessed one) where someone made you feel ashamed
for something you did as a mom? Were you able to overcome it? How? What are
your thoughts on mom bashing and shaming and how would you like to
see it change?
Yes. After Chabela laughed for the
first time (which may have been the best day of my life) she went on strike for
two weeks and we didn’t hear that joyful giggle! A friend of our said “Oh,
she’s probably just mad at you because you leave her in day care all day”.
I couldn’t believe she said that,
and I was a little surprised, but not really mad or hurt. She doesn’t know that
Chabela is going great in her day care and that returning back to work is the
best thing for our family. I’m confident we are making the best decisions we
can.
Mom bashing is terrible, because
it’s us doing it to ourselves. As women we need to stop being so critical of
each other and start being supportive. Every mother and every child is
different, we need to start accepting each other’s decisions on parenting
styles and support each other in our decisions.
What's one tip you would share with
future moms?
Parenting is hard. Don’t feel bad
about seeking help. Successful parenting is making the best decisions you can
and accepting them.
How or what do you want you kids to
remember you by?
My Joy. I want them to know me, to
really know who I am as a woman, friend, wife, sister and not just a mom. I
know I worry too much about the details of arranging appointments, washing
laundry, prepping meals, grocery shopping, etc. but I hope that through it all
they can see me, all of my character traits, and I hope my joy is the one that
stands out.
What is something you miss about
life before your kids?
MY INDEPENDENCE!!! Being able to go
anywhere I wanted, at any time, to do whatever I wanted (and without having
time it around naps and feedings and without having to pack a stroller, diaper
bag, milk, change of clothes, etc.etc.etc.)
What's something that people close
to you might not know?
I love CrossFit and that’s no
surprise. But when I first returned to the gym after giving birth I got so many
compliments about how much of a “bad ass” I was and how strong I was for coming
back so soon. Although I’m sure everyone meant well, I wanted so badly to
explain that I wasn’t a bad ass and I’m not that strong. Mentally and
emotionally I was wreck for the first 6-8 weeks, battling PPD and going back to
the gym was the only thing that made me feel like a human again. It was my
therapy. I wasn’t there because I was strong, I was going because I needed it
in order to feel “normal”. I don’t want my decision to go back to the gym so
early to make others feel like that’s the right decision for them, because it
probably isn’t. And that’s okay.
What inspires you most?
My husband. He is the most patient,
loving, and giving person I’ve ever met. When I married him, I had no idea how
that he was everything I needed. Every day I want to be better for him, for us,
for our family. It’s the best gift I can give.
What is one question you would ask
your mother (about anything)?
What dreams or goals she sacrificed
when she became a mom.
Are you proud of yourself and who
you have become as a mom? Would you change anything?
Absolutely. I’m proud of who I am
and who I am becoming. Change anything? Actually, no. my faults, weaknesses,
and insecurities during the first few months of motherhood have brought me so
much closer to my husband, and for that I am grateful! The journey’s not over,
and I am changing every day, but as for changing anything in the past, I’ll
have to opt out.
Who are some inspiring mamas you
follow on Instagram?
@Rachie_bo_baychie, @babeanderson and
@belladwella
Where can we follow you?
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