286: 10 Things I Don’t Do As A Mom of Eight and As A Business Owner

286: 10 Things I Don’t Do As A Mom of Eight and As A Business Owner

Hey there, how are you? I am pretty exhausted but I am showing up today as I can and as I will. Yesterday I spent almost eight hours, both days, with my business mentor, diving into messaging and business. And I didn't even know you could spend that much time talking about that.

And it's almost like the tip of the iceberg of all the things we could talk about and dive into. So, I'm thankful that I decided to invest in myself, my business, and my learning and get help from someone else who's skilled at what they do.

And be able to teach me, because I do not know a lot of the things I've been learning. And so my brain has been exhausted because of all the learning. So today I'm going to share about 10 things that I don't do as a mom of eight, as a homeschooling mom, and as a business owner.

A lot of times, people think I have a lot going on in my life and there are a lot of things that I don't do that change what I can get done in a day. I'm going to share about that today. And I want to share a little story from a client. This is a little part of her story. I'm starting to forget which ones I've shared and which ones I haven't.

So if I repeat the same one, just forgive me. I'll read more of this one later. But she said: “I tried RRT because I felt the trauma. I experienced was too complex for other forms of therapy and would take years to get through. And I was quoted 180 per one-hour session, which would not be covered by insurance.

I saw that Megan guaranteed you'd notice a difference or she would refund the session. So I thought that it must work. And what did I have to lose? I still don't understand how it works, but I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. Even if you don't have trauma or a significant event, it cleared so many things for me that I didn't even know were affecting my life, so I feel like it would be beneficial to everyone.

I'm so grateful to have done it. It took two hours total for me. I keep thinking about how, if I tried another form of therapy, the two hours would have barely gone anywhere. So that's a pretty incredible experience to be able to help somebody in two hours that felt super complex and super difficult. You know, it would take years and years and years of therapy to be able to process and deal with this traumatic situation that happened.”

And we were able to work together and she got it done in two hours. So that was pretty, pretty incredible. And I love, love to share those stories because I want you to know that it's possible for you too. So as we dived into talking about this, I was trying to think about the things that maybe are different, you know, than a lot of what a lot of people do.

Maybe I don't know; I have no idea what people do in their homes or what expectations you may have of yourself or whatever. The other conundrum I have when I'm talking about that is being a mom of eight and sometimes it feels a little misleading. Because I don't have eight kids in my home that I'm taking care of.

There are seven. But I've thought that the work of living here without her makes up for that, right? I don't know. I like saying I have eight kids because that's how many I have. So, there we go. So here are ten things that I don't do as a mom of eight: homeschool my kids, grow my business, and help others.

As I said earlier, sometimes people think I do a lot, but I hand off a lot, and I don't do a lot of the things that people might do in their day. It's mostly things at home, but I kind of want to do a few things in business and a few things in homeschooling—but just kind of things that came off the top of my head that makes my life easier than I do not do.

Number one. There's no particular order. This is just what it came to in my mind. So the number one is that I don't fold my kids' clothes. I just throw their clothes in a pile and right now I don't because that's my daughter's job to sort and put away kids' clothes and then they all have drawers and put their clothes in a drawer so they do not fold their clothes.

They do not hang their clothes up. It's not very important to me and I don't necessarily think of it as a skill they have to learn if they want to learn it. They can, and for sure they can do that, but I don't make it; it's something they have to do. I've just found that folding clothes would just make me more frustrated than not.

Because, you know, you fold your kid's clothes, and then they go in the drawer. They’ll say, “Oh, I don't want that one or that one,” and then it's just a huge mess. Then you're back to folding it again. On the bus, I had to fold their clothes because they only had one drawer each and that was the only way their clothes could fit in there. I ended up having to fold them often and before we went on the bus, I didn't fold them.

And I'm right back to not folding them again because when I have the space to have a drawer for them, it just makes my life easier. It's easier. They all put their clothes away. Even my 2-year-old puts her stuff away because it's easy when they don't fold their clothes and I don't fold them. That's number one.

Number two. I don't have my kids take showers or baths every day and I don't even have a particular day. I try to think about it for sure on Saturday and maybe one other day during the week. It's like, okay, I would like them to take a shower today or in a tub or something.

And maybe that sounds horrible to you. You have one kid, or maybe you're good at this. This is just something that I don't worry about. I don't really. I think little kids, especially babies and young kids, have a big issue unless, in the summer, they do, because they're playing outside a ton, but when they're inside and they're not getting sweaty and they're not getting gross, I don't care.

As the boys and my older kids are getting older, they do more often, but I just think we do live in an over-showering, happy culture too. I don't think it's as necessary as we think it is every single day. So, that's one thing I do not do. I do not shower or bathe my little kids every single day.

Number three. I do not go grocery shopping at the grocery store. This might be changing because I struggle with going back and forth between using Instacart. I love the convenience of it. I love that it just shows up at my door. but I just struggle with the expenses. Especially when you're buying so much food for your family, it just gets more and more expensive.

I just don't know. We'll see. Right now, I'm kind of: Well, let's try Walmart pick up. So I don't go to the grocery store to shop. I just go to. I have just once, one time. So I don't know where this is going. I have zero interest in running around the grocery store and getting stuff because it takes time.

It's a lot of work. It's a lot of energy that I don't want to spend running around when I have other options like going to grocery pickup or using Instacart. So that's always an option. I just have to decide if that's where I want to put our money or not. And so it's just where we'll see where I end up and maybe sometimes, like ordering my Costco groceries from Instacart and then doing Walmart pickup.

I don't know if I can find a happy medium there or something but I just don't feel like running around. I don't know when you will have so many groceries. I think sometimes it's hard to fathom how much groceries somebody gets when they have a lot of kids. And I know that what I get is probably way less than somebody who has more kids than me.

Number four. I have not made bread for years. I sometimes make it. Sometimes I make sourdough when I get like, “Oh, this is something fun to do today," but it's not the only thing I do. I've bought bread for years. And there are many homemade things that, I would say, a lot of my friends do. When I go to my friends' houses or people I know, they make almost everything.

So in my circle, most people I know make everything. They make their bread; they make their yogurt; they make their granola; they make them. I don't know. Some people make their soap, and some people make all their skin care products, which I have done in the past, but I just don't have the time or energy to do that right now.

And so, I have bought in all that stuff; I've bought in bread; I've bought in whatever; and just recently, I started having my kids, so I gave my two oldest a job; one of my boy's jobs is to make bread. When I was thinking about this, I was like, Well, it would be nice to have homemade bread, but I cannot do it.

I don't have the bandwidth to make bread every week. And so now, one of my kids, one of his jobs, is that he's responsible for making bread. Not only is it kind of a fun way for him to take responsibility for something, but it also gets us bread and then he learns that skill of making bread. And right now I don't; I just say, “Hey, oh, we're out of bread.”

Okay. Now it's time to make bread and he makes it. I don't have to touch a thing. He does it all. It's incredible. So that's pretty amazing. And then my other son is in charge of making yogurt. So now, yesterday, he made yogurt completely by himself. I just texted him a few directions and he got it all.

And that was amazing, too. So that's his role and his job is to be in charge of yogurt. When we're out of yogurt, then it's his job to do it. And so my job is to make sure they have the ingredients for that.

Number five. I don't know why I'm saying this, but this is what I do. So I don't do this. I don't sleep with my babies or let kids sleep in our bed. I never have. I just can't sleep with them there. I don't. I never slept well with them there. I don't like them kicking me. I like our bed to just be for me and Justin. For many reasons but I know it's just really personal to each person.

I do not like having kids in our bed. Even though I liked them to be away from me in my bed when Aria died, Brelin could not sleep more than a few inches away from me. She did not sleep in my bed, but right next to me, until I didn't sleep at all. So then Justin had to sleep by her, and I slept in a different room.

That's not an issue anymore, but I just don't. I just don't like having kids in my bed. So, that's one thing I don't do. I don't set an alarm in the morning. I don't know why I still think that I should be a person who gets up in the morning and, you know, drinks my coffee, has that peaceful time, and does all my stuff.

And I just can't seem to do it. I do not get up in the morning. I do not set an alarm. It's a huge benefit of homeschooling that we do not get up. We do not get racing with our day. We tend to have slow mornings. And I enjoy that. There's a part of me that wishes I would get up in the morning and do stuff and whatever. Right now is not my season. I would rather go to sleep than do that.

Number seven. This is a pretty huge thing. I do not do everything myself. I have a babysitter that comes twice a week. If I need babysitting, my kids will babysit. If I work at home for a little bit, my husband pitches in and does a lot. And we're always trying to talk. Okay, what can he take off my plate?

Is he available to do it because he's working full-time? Like we're always discussing what is, you know, how can we balance this? There are a lot of things that need to get done and things we want to do. And I don't do it all. So when I think about that, I'm like, okay, what else can I outsource?

Like grocery shopping, having a babysitter come in, or my job. My kids have jobs every single day. They all have jobs, so they help take care of the house. It's not all on me. I do not do everything myself. I have seen sometimes people say, Oh, well, in a big family, you just have the older kids take care of the younger kids and they just are. What do you say?

They're just turning into the mom or the dad and you're not taking care of them. And I would say, as a mom of a bunch of kids, it's interesting how often my oldest is like, if I say, you know, start handing out jobs, he's like, I'll watch Nico; he'll take care of the baby. He's like, that's his favorite job.

He has fun with it. He loves that his baby brother loves him. And it's so cute to see that connection between them, just really. Not only is he learning the skills of how to take care of babies, but he's also good at taking care of his little brother, and he loves it.

And so just something to think about and something I've thought about is that it's just really incredible when we give our kids these responsibilities that they, you know, can handle, whatever their age is. It's so amazing how much they learn and how much they rise to that.

There are so many other things that I don't do myself, including with my partner and in my business. I don't do my podcast, upload, or show notes, and I'm looking to hand off as much as I can to my VA. I'm looking at the fact that I'm only doing the things I love in my business. So that's where I'm looking to go.

We'll see how long it takes me to get there, but I want to. You know, I hand off as much as I can to my VA and others and eventually hire people to help out. It's just that I don't envision myself doing everything.

Number eight. Right now, in this pretty busy phase of my life with growing this business and homeschooling and you know, we have a lot of little kids still.

I don't have a very structured schedule for homeschooling. I don't have a very structured schedule; we wake up at eight and we do homeschooling at nine and we don't, and I don't even know if I would, even if I wasn't busy like this. My kids have their basics that they do every day.

That's that for now and then there's, you know, places where I might facilitate some things, like put a story going, a particular story going, bring them to the library, do a project with them or whatever. It's like getting a particular curriculum or something that I want them to learn.

But Justin has been stepping up to this and he's. I think we'll see if this happens or how it goes, but he's going to take one day off a week and that'll be his role, which is to just do school stuff with the kids that day and do fun projects and fun things. So there's not any structure. I have no doubt that my kids are learning and thriving in that.

Number nine. If I go visiting or hosting, this has been a huge one for me, but not everything needs to be homemade. It can be stressful to go visit or host. If you, especially around food, like, what do I make? What should I make?

I just don't make it; I don't have to. So there's something I've learned: if I think I have to, it gets difficult. But if I'm like, well, there's another option. I could just go buy something from the store. No big deal. Okay. Yep. I can do that. If I don't have the bandwidth to make something, I can buy something.

And so that has been useful for me in taking some of the pressure off myself if I don't have time to make some, but if I do, great. And if I want to and enjoy it, I can, but it doesn't make me a better host or it doesn't make me a more welcoming host if I make something versus just buy something. So what's been huge for me is permitting myself to buy something and everything doesn't need to be homemade.

Number ten. The last thing is that I feel like we're; we have a house and we're seemingly getting more stuff, but we don't have all that much stuff.

So not having a lot of stuff helps keep the house cleaner. It's easier to manage the house and keep things in their place. Most everything is starting to have a place—a place where it belongs, a place where it goes. It's just easier to manage. You know, it's pretty quick to clean up a mess, especially if everyone helps out.

But I just find that not having a lot of stuff helps. So that's been something I want to just keep in my brain. I like it; I don't need more stuff. We just don't have a lot of stuff. We don't need a lot of stuff, even though I love buying things. I would love to fill my house with stuff just because I like to.

There you have it. Those are my 10 things, just off the top of my head: things I don't do, things I've let go of, and things I've shifted or changed. Hopefully, just one of them will be useful for you in your life, permitting you to just do your life. How you want to and what works for you and your family. 

And again, I am hosting a new live training. You can go to, uh, www.getridofanxietyforgood.com and register for that training. I can't wait. It's about how to heal anxiety and trauma. And we will be doing that live on Wednesday. And so, go, check it out, and register at www.getridofanxietyforgood.com. See you there! See you next week!

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