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How to Cope with BTS Mom Blues

By Christy Leave a Comment

While most parents rejoice during back-to-school season, some of us suffer from the BTS Mom Blues. Probably not a clinical term, but a real condition. Try practicing these five ways to cope with BTS Mom Blues to combat your loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

While most parents rejoice during back-to-school days, some of us suffer from the BTS Mom Blues. Probably not a clinical term, but a real condition. Try practicing these five ways to cope with BTS Mom Blues to combat your loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

What are the BTS Mom Blues?

While many of you are cheering back-to-school season and cherishing your quiet time alone, there are others, like myself, feeling empty and blue. While you may feel that you are getting SO MUCH DONE in these first few days, weeks, months, some of us can’t concentrate or get motivated enough to get anything done.

These issues and many more, my happy-go-lucky-loving-your-empty-day-nest friends, are called the BTS Mom Blues. And it’s rough! I’m prone to tears at any given moment, I have the television on mindless shows for “white noise”, every time I get out of a meeting, I look up expecting one of them, any of them, to immediately need something from me.

But they don’t. They aren’t even here. I’m all alone in my house. Just me, no noise other than the constant pecking of these keys.

While most parents rejoice during back-to-school days, some of us suffer from the BTS Mom Blues. Probably not a clinical term, but a real condition. Try practicing these five ways to cope with BTS Mom Blues to combat your loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

Coping with the BTS Mom Blues!

If you miss frolicking with your kids during the care-free summer days, and if you’re a sufferer like me, I have some tips for coping you should try. You might not want/need to listen, but believe me, at this point I’m an expert with six kids and a total of 29 years full-time parenting under my belt (with a 9 and 11 year old still at home!).

While most parents rejoice during back-to-school days, some of us suffer from the BTS Mom Blues. Probably not a clinical term, but a real condition. Try practicing these five ways to cope with BTS Mom Blues to combat your loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

Tip 1: Let them know you’re OK!

When they go to school on the first day, and all the subsequent days, let them know you’re OK with it. Sounds silly, but telling them helps you convince yourself. Added bonus for giving them that added boost of courage and confidence. Mom “wins” help you cope with your BST Blues.

While most parents rejoice during back-to-school days, some of us suffer from the BTS Mom Blues. Probably not a clinical term, but a real condition. Try practicing these five ways to cope with BTS Mom Blues to combat your loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

Tip 2: Let them be unicorns!

I know this one might sound a little trite, cliché even, but really it’s not at all. For those of us who suffer the BTS Mom Blues, we need to remember that our children need to be unique and forge their own paths in life. If we keep them with us all the time (which is truly what I want to do other than the occasional date night, etc.), we don’t give them the space they need to make friends, become stronger, learn more, and just grow up to be amazing humans…all on their own!

While most parents rejoice during back-to-school days, some of us suffer from the BTS Mom Blues. Probably not a clinical term, but a real condition. Try practicing these five ways to cope with BTS Mom Blues to combat your loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

Tip 3: Make the most of together time!

No brainer here. When they get off of school, finish up your work, help them with homework, then let them help make dinner for the night or lunches for the next day. You’ll begin to realize that the time you spent alone wasn’t so bad after all and it just makes you appreciate your time together that much more!

Tip 4: Use the TV for mindless white noise!

During the day, if you feel it’s too quiet to function, like I do, since you’ve grown so accustomed to the chaos, turn on the TV for some white noise. Keep the volume low so as not to distract you from your work, but the background noise will actually help raise your productivity. Trust me, I know from experience. Don’t turn on something that will suck you in, of course, because that’s counter productive. I suggest Jerry Springer (yes, I’m serious) or something similar. Lots of fighting, no resolution. Just like when the kids are at home!

Tip 5: Remember that you deserve alone time!

As moms, I think this one is the hardest. I almost think guilt plays a HUGE part in the BTS Mom Blues. We need to be needed in all aspects of our lives. Home, work, husband, kids, you name it; we need to be needed so we feel a sense of emptiness if any of those aspects aren’t with us at all times. Break the cycle. They need you, whether they are with you in the moment or not, they need you. Remember that every time you start to feel blue.

That’s about it. I guess I’m not much on advice since I still suffer this horrible ailment (at least for the first half of the school year) every year, but that’s my advice in a nutshell. Seems simple, straight forward, and somewhat elementary (see what I did right there?), but it’s how I get through these days and I’m hoping it will help y’all out too. Hang in there, mommas, we got this. What advice do you have for beating the BTS Mom Blues? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

Filed Under: Family, Healthy Living, Life, Moms, Parenting Tagged With: Back to School, hardship, parental problems, parenting, raising kids, self help for moms

It’s Fall! Are Your Kids’ School Uniforms Ready?

By Christy Leave a Comment

If your kids are in need of new school uniforms for fall, don’t go from store to store looking for something in their size, visit FrenchToast.com instead. They sent my babies fall uniforms to facilitate this post and we’re hooked!

French Toast School Uniforms for Fall

School uniforms. They’re a great equalizer and I’m kind of a fan. Well, I’m a fan of equalizing the haves and have nots and the no drama morning outfit debate that I don’t have to deal with, but I’m not a fan of trying to find these uniforms at my limited local stores in the right colors, the right sizes, and the right seasonal attire. Until now. Now that I’ve found French Toast, that hopping from store to store to never find what we needed struggle (the struggle was real, y’all) is over!

French Toast School Uniforms for boys and girls

You see, my babies are tiny, and our weather is crazy on the island this time of the year. By tiny I mean, Bug just turned 9 and she wears a size 7 in clothes, but the pants are way too short, and so are the shorts, so we always get skorts with leggings. Bubby will be 7 (be still my heart) this month, and the little guy is still in a size 5…with elastic waistbands. I have no clue where they get their tiny stature from *ahem* but I hope they grow (literally) out of it one day. Until then, we deal with it. But we don’t have to deal with the endless hours of shopping for ill-fitted school uniforms that aren’t seasonal anymore.

Can I get an…

H

O

R

R

A

Y

Please and thank you?

French Toast Uniforms Benefits

French Toast gets that kids come in different sizes, they get that seasonal uniforms are hard to find since the seasons are so different across the nation, so they accommodate year round with a wide variety of school uniform choices and items that can even help my littles out. I easily found long shorts for Bug (not an easy task since she’s got an itty bitty waist and bean stalk legs) and pleated shorts for Bubby that don’t fall off since they have those adjustable waistlines that I can’t find locally. And even though we don’t need them just yet (hello Houston 90º weather in October), I was able to stock up on long sleeved uniform shirts for both because I can never find them when the cooler temps set in. All without leaving the comfort of my living room (and my laptop).

French Toast Uniforms 3 IINAO

I feel really accomplished, y’all. I’m ahead of the game this year when it comes to the babies’ preparedness and if you’ve been following along at all, you know that’s a really huge deal for me this year! We’re ready for fall (OK, not the cold weather, but everything else), are you? Get the kids school ready for fall and *e-gads* winter with the help of French Toast School Uniforms this year. My kids are ready. Are yours?

Filed Under: Family, Moms, My Happy Life, Parenting, Uncategorized Tagged With: Back to School, Kids Clothes, parenting, School Uniforms

First Day of School, School Uniforms, and Social Lessons from Kindergarteners

By Christy 2 Comments

school uniforms, equality, first day of school

Today was the first day of school. Yay for them, sad face for mom. Seriously, it was so quiet in here, you’d think I’d be ecstatic, but actually I felt terribly alone. But enough about me. Let’s talk about the first day of school and things that hit me like a ton of bricks today, shall we? Well, since we’re talking about things that hit me like a ton of bricks, I guess we (really just me) are still talking about me, right? It is what it is.

The babies had a great first day, mostly. Bug enjoyed every minute of it and Bubby enjoyed the first half. Apparently the second half was really boring involving sitting on a rug and stuff. Turns out, the “stuff” was music class and it’s apparently not his favorite part of the day. He had fun, he’s making friends, and I’m incredibly proud of him.

Now, on to what “hit” me. My kids are just fine without me. In fact, they flourish. That’s a good thing, really, but it’s somewhat hurtful in a way. I need them, I know they need me, but they do very well without me. Proud, but bitter sweet.

But aside from the emotional issues of the day, I decided I wanted to talk about something political. Uniforms and equality. If you know me at all, you know that I stay FAR away from discussions of politics, race, or religion. These are hot topics and I don’t like confrontation or debate. That’s not to say that I don’t have strong views, it’s just to say that I don’t like to argue or upset others. So I shut up. I mumble to myself, I have my opinions, but I keep them closed within me, because that’s how I was raised. Today, I break that mold.

My kids’ first day of school pictures will look exactly like their last day of school pictures because my children will be wearing the exact same clothes on the first day as they do on the last. Yes, school uniforms. Although I do hate the blandness of it all, I actually totally appreciate it. Not for my kids really, but for some of the others.

We “have”, others in my area do not. It’s not fair, but it’s a fact of life. I was raised with money. A blonde haired, blue eyed, “white” girl with money. Then I raised 2 little girls as a single mom. We didn’t have shit. They were lucky to have Walmart clothes for school. The playing field wasn’t equal for them, but they made do and they did well because they had the charm and charisma to pull it off. That had nothing to do with social stature, race, or anything really, other than themselves. I was proud but I wanted more for them.

Kindergarten, equality, equal rights

Today, as I sent my babies to school, as I dropped them off in their classes, I looked around. All of the kids looked the same. White, black, brown, yellow…the same. Why? Because they were all wearing red or white polo shirts with khaki shorts, skorts, skirts, or pants. No one stood out. No one stood in the shadows. Equal. There was no hatred. There was no racism, no talk of socio-economic differences. And they giggled, laughed, and conversed as equals. Because they should. Because they are. One child’s family might have more money than another. One child’s skin might dictate how society treats them. But in that classroom, in those same uniforms, they are equal and in that, I find hope for this world.

I see a lot of bad things daily on the internet, on social media, but today I saw peace. I felt peace. If everyone saw the world through the eyes of a child, if we all wore uniforms, this world would be a better place. Please don’t think I’m insinuating that racism doesn’t exist. It does and it breaks my heart and every fiber of my being on a daily basis. All I’m saying is that it doesn’t exist in Kindergarten. Hatred is learned and thankfully, these babies haven’t learned to hate yet. I hope they never will.

Zach Kindergarten

I watched my son this morning and I was proud. I was proud of the lessons I’ve taught him and I was proud that he doesn’t see color or social stature. He sees people, he sees friends. We’d all be better people, we’d be a better society, if we’d all take a moment to revisit Kindergarten. There are no barriers there. No learned hatred. No discrimination. Just love, uniforms, and equality. It’s a beautiful thing. I witnessed pure beauty and I loved it!

I’m not writing this for a political debate. I’m not writing this to hear how much better I have it than others (I know that I have it better than some, worse than others). I’m writing this to point out that children (and schools with uniforms) are so much better than our society as a whole. Being unique is flippin awesome, but some uniformity, some conformity, is pretty awesome too. Let us all learn from our children. They don’t see the walls that we, as adults, sometimes build. Why should they? They shouldn’t exist. They don’t see socio-economic standing. They don’t care. They see someone that looks just like them. In a uniform. They see friends…all around them. And they are so much more brilliant than we are. Let’s don’t teach them to hate. Ever.

If my kids never get out of uniforms, if they never see the hatred that society has created, I’ll be OK with that. I hope they always continue to see everyone the same way they see themselves when they look in the mirror. That’s the way it should be and I’m glad my babies see it that way. It’s time to stop the hatred. Hopefully these kids, our future, will finally make the change and this world will be a better place. It will be as wonderful as Kindergarten where the only talk of color that matters is in the Crayola box and all of the beautiful drawings they can create with those colors…together.

Filed Under: accomplishments, Bubby, Bugisms, Family, Galveston, Island Living, Life, Moms, Parenting Tagged With: Back to School, family, parenting

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Welcome to the asylum!

Hey y'all! I'm Christy and I'm glad you could stop by. Have a seat, grab a drink or a straight jacket, and join me as I share heart-healthy recipes, stories and life lessons about my insanely large family, and whatever else pops into my hot mess of a mind! Read More…

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