Hey DDB fam! Hope your week is off to a great start! If this is your first time here, welcome! Do yourself a favor and join this amazing family, subscribe to the blog by clicking ‘follow‘ at the bottom right and enter your email address. Trust me, you are going to love it here!
Love is in the air!!! Any plans for valentine’s day? As for me, nothing major I just want good food and quality time with my husband. Hopefully, we can get the kids in bed early and sneak in a quick date night at home. If not, we will be celebrating Valentine’s Day family-style.
Are you following me on Instagram yet? Did you yes? Yay! hi-five! Did you say no? No worries, better now than never @destinationdestinyblog. I post things on Instagram that don’t make it to the blog. So, click and follow me!
One day I woke up with an interesting idea! A love note series addressed to Side Chicks, the words kept running through my mind. I tried to shake it off because, I thought ummm…that it kinda sorta did not sound “spiritual” enough...shaking my head! Lo and behold, I tune in to Bible Study and my spiritual father was teaching about Jesus being our Passover and how taking communion should be done regularly and with the right understanding and a reminder of the benefits of our salvation (my summary is doing the message no justice, you got watch it for yourself!).
Before I knew it, he said something about side chicks and I was shocked! Watch the message here, it will change your life! Talk about confirmation, I knew that was God telling me to do the thing! So, I started writing and posting the notes on Instagram; it’s been good! Family, do me a favor and read, like, comment on and share the posts, join me in my quest to save Side Chicks! #operationsaveasidechick
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Now to the order of the day, today’s post!!! I want to thank everyone for the feedback on my last post on structure! I was told that a lot of millennial parents could relate. In my last post, I spoke about how I had to be firm with my children’s bedtime and wake up earlier to take of myself before I put on my mommy hat for the day.
Today, I want to share another tip that is helping me in my millennial parenting journey. Like many parents, I wear numerous hats, my table is pretty much always full. Behind every title (wife, mother, pastor, daughter, sister, friend, writer, mentor, etc.) there is a large volume of responsibility and I’ve found myself extremely overwhelmed in the past. Trust me, living in the realm of the overwhelm is not the real deal! It only leads to frustration and unfulfillment; there is nothing cute about those twins.
I’ve learned to SCHEDULE! SCHEDULE!! SCHEDULE!!! I used to pride myself in always making myself available to everyone at any time; being the go-to girl for everything; I was the “strong friend”. I abandoned my own well being in the process. I discovered one of the reasons why; being ignored is one of my biggest pet peeves, and I always went above and beyond to ensure that no one ever felt ignored. In this season, being a present mommy is my priority so I had to incorporate a schedule that would ensure that I was not only physically present but mentally present for my children.
I started having people schedule phone calls, counseling sessions, and whatever else with me. I no longer felt guilty about saying no or not right now. I am no longer under any pressure to pick up the phone if I am in the middle of something, I am no longer feel pressured to respond to text messages and have extended conversations while I had deadlines and three little faces staring me in the eye. Just like the bible says, there is a time for everything, God is a God of order, I am proudly my father’s daughter; hence putting a time to every activity is wise.
I have specific days where I focus on specific expressions of myself, I have specific time frames of the day where I focus on certain things. I align my schedule with my short term and long term goals. I breakdown my schedule into sections, some tasks require undivided attention so I need to have quiet so that I can focus. Other tasks can be done along with other things, so I schedule them accordingly. I consider times of the day when I have more energy and try to focus on major tasks during that time.
I also leave room for miscellaneous happenings, because hey! Life isn’t perfect and I don’t want to be selectively unavailable when I am truly needed. When I do give people my attention, they can be rest assured that I am giving my best. I live to be a blessing to every single person in my sphere of influence and I don’t take the privilege for granted.
Having a schedule has allowed people to respect my time and help me to focus on the care of my children. When I lost my job over a year ago…more like the lost me (haha, I digress). It was actually a blessing in disguise, I was working as a public health professional and this is one of the most busiest times for my profession. I sincerely don’t know how I would have handled it all, because I was considered an essential worker and I worked in a very demanding department. To all my parents who are doing both, I salute you, you are the real MVPs!
After losing my job, I realized that my first daughter (who was in PreK 4 at the time) was a little behind in some things at school. I was so busy with work before, that I never took out time to notice. I was always at every parent-teacher conference (they were usually after work), I tried to be at most of her performances and other school activities but I was always on the go. I remember attending her Christmas show during my lunch break and having to speed back off to work while other parents had the option to take their children home with them earlier; she looked so sad as I told her that she had to go back to class. I didn’t feel good about it but I felt like focusing on my growing career was very important in that season of my life and that it was a minor sacrifice.
I made a decision to pay more attention to her education. Classes were supposed to be virtual temporarily, as everyone was trying to figure out how to navigate the new normal. I did additional activities with her after her classes; gave her one on one attention, I encouraged her and kept affirming her. I also prayed with her and for her, (as parents we really needed to specific with our prayers). I was elated when she won the most excellent student award for her grade level at the end of the school year. All of her teachers did a drive-through visit to our house and lavished her with cheers and gifts. I cried real tears because it was a major sacrifice but it was worth it!
The following semester, my three-year-old started PreK 3 while my first daughter started kindergarten. By that time their school had fully gone virtual. I kept trying to wrap my head around how everything would play out. My youngest daughter was about 4 months old then; she was fully dependent on me. After getting their virtual school schedules, I started to stress; the schedules were completely different; add breastfeeding, cooking more frequently, and transitioning to pastoring church virtually for some time…I was rendered speechless.
After getting over the shock, I calmed down and made a decision to take it a day at a time. I had to play around with different variations of our new schedules, in no time we got a rhythm going. Some days were better than others but I learned to dance instead of freak out; I learned to laugh instead of being hard on ourselves, I learned to be creative and adaptive, and I learned to take breaks, it was okay to just sit still and relax even if the kids were screaming at the top of their lungs, running around and jumping up and down at the same time.
Having a schedule keeps the millennial parent sane and it helps children to know what to expect. It teaches children order and serves as an example of how successful people run their lives. Schedules give your children things to look forward to and eliminates neglecting the essentials for the urgent; because things that appear to be urgent aren’t always essential. Scheduling has held me accountable, it has helped me to overcome procrastination and celebrate every single achievement. I get so much joy from checking off items on my checklist, no matter how small, progress is a big deal! Each task completed serves as a goal achieved.
Millennial parenting can not be done spontaneously. Our children are in their formative years, they are learning the dos and don’ts of life from us. We are creating pictures of how life ought to be. Have you ever found yourself doing or saying something that parents used to do or say during your childhood? That has happened to me several times! We are creating imprints in the memories of our children. So be intentional! God gives us children and he hires us as their caretakers, we will give account for how we do our jobs. So be intentional! Schedule! Schedule!! Schedule!!!
Over to you! Do you use schedules? What are the pros and cons?
Much love DDB fam!
– Your girl, Bunmi Adebiyi
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