surviving motherhood

This episode is from the Committee on Women in the Legal Profession’s #LawMom initiative. The Committee on Women created the #LawMom series in 2016 as a way to hold discussions around having a legal career and managing parenting responsibilities.  

The title of this episode is twofold. First, it allows a wonderfully candid discussion between all our panelists in the hopes of sharing experiences for other law moms out there. And second, the topics and questions discussed are both posed for the legal community at large and aimed at helping the legal community stakeholders, either as a managing partner, co-worker, supervisor, or authority figure, learn how to better and strengthen the legal community for new moms and parents as they navigate such a momentous and beautiful milestone such as parenthood. 

Hosts: Allison Block-Chavez, Aldridge Hammar & Wexler PA; Aja Brooks, Office of the US Attorney; Jensen Wallace, Terry & deGraauw, P.C.  

We've all heard this topic discussed before yet we hope you can gain encouragement from hearing our stories with dealing with comparison in motherhood and feel encouraged.

Do your child's intense emotions make you feel uncomfortable, do you find it difficult to know how to respond or what to do during emotional outbursts ? In this episode we will look at how acknowledging our children's challenging emotions can help them process what they are feeling and how important it is to allow them to feel what they need to feel. I will give you plenty of examples on how you can do this and guide you through why we should.

In the Everyday Heroes segment, I speak to Lindsey a first time mum of a 5 month old boy. Lindsey talks about how it felt to become a new mum and how she survived the 4th trimester. Real and raw stories from parents.

Show notes and transcript are available here.

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What a crazy time we are living in right now. I was thinking about the fact that we have been in a "shelter in place" order for 8 weeks already. It's hard to believe it's been that long that my kids have been out of school, I have been 100% home, and my husband has been home most of the time as well. 

If someone had told me at the beginning of 2020 that we would be where we are now, I would have said they were nuts… I came into 2020 with what I thought was so much clarity and an incredible vision for the future… well, here we are and today and it’s not what I saw, but it is what it is! 

Today, I'm sharing my top takeaways so far from all of this time at home. These are in no particular order, but here we go…

1. I’ve learned that I really love to research and find new things to fill my brain. 
2. I have learned that I am not very organized with that information and I am in need of some type of easy organizational method to keep everything categorized. 
3. I learned my Myers Brigs personality type. 
4. I've learned that I don't have patience when teaching my kids schoolwork -especially the subjects that are taught differently than I learned. 
5. I’ve learned that I get frustrated because I think my kids should know how to spell and they are not taught spelling in school so both of my kids are terrible at it.
6. I've learned that I am content being at home a majority of the time. 
7. I've learned that I have spent WAY too much money on ridiculous things in the past and those things mean nothing. 
8. I've learned that being at home with my family isn't so bad.
9. I’ve learned that I occasionally need a Mommy Time Out. 
10. I’ve learned that being a casual, not put together, relaxed Mom with kids basically living in their pajamas all the time is ok. 

So, there you have it… just a few things that I have learned about myself in the last several weeks. What about you? What have you learned about yourself during this time? Please head over to my website, https://livingjoyfulandwell.com/podcast, and leave me a comment on the blog post titled "10 Biggest Takeaways From This Time At Home" or send me an email at jenn@livingjoyfulandwell.com. I would love to know! 

While you’re there, download my FREE gratitude meditation! Give yourself the gift of 10 minutes of calm!

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