“When Do I Start to Feel Normal Again?”

Hello, hello my friends! I took an unplanned two-week break from this newsletter, not because I wanted to, but because traveling with children this summer has taken just about everything out of me. Who’s with me?

On that note, Hillary Kerr wrote something in a recent issue of Hi Everyone that I haven’t stopped thinking about:

My kids are 22 months apart, so I truthfully didn’t start feeling like I was even close to back to normal—or a new normal, which is more accurate—until my youngest was three. But now that they are almost seven and nine, I am realizing that I’m just now starting to feel like myself again. And that’s embarrassing to write, to admit that I was so fundamentally upended by having children, but it’s the truth. - Hilary Kerr of Hi Everyone

Reading her confession felt like an exhale. Fundamentally upended by having children. That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling the past eight years since I became a mother, and exponentially since I had Irish twins who are now toddlers. And how I feel 2/3 of the way through summer!

Of course there’s the bliss and the “I love you so much I could chomp your arm rolls” and the tenderness. But there’s also a whole other spectrum of emotions that come with motherhood that we don’t talk about.

I’m not necessarily talking about the boobs that are decidedly less perky or that pesky C-section shelf that still makes wearing pants weird or the way my hair rudely has gone from silky and smooth to coarse and wiry over the past two years. I do want to talk about those things (like seriously…I need advice on all the above, please and thank you).

What I’m talking about—and I imagine Hillary is too—is that feeling one of my friends (who just had her first baby at 40) voiced to me yesterday:

“What else can I get you?” I asked as I put some dishes in the dishwasher and filled up her baby’s next bottle.

She flashed me that look of desperation I’ve seen in so many new moms, a little wryness edging into her voice:

“Nothing. Except when do I start to feel normal again?”

It’s subjective, ones definition of normal, but I think what many moms struggle with after having their first—or fifth!—is the absolutely earth-shattering way your life is different. It’s the sleep deprivation, of course. But it’s bigger than that. It’s your body, your brain, your relationships, your work, and even the way you move through the world.

I take a different route to the kitchen during nap time and if I forget, I tiptoe over the hardwood like the ballerina I never was, every creak making me flinch.

Hot meals, quiet conversations over dinner, that gentle scrape of silverware to plate, a post-dinner decaf are traded for trying to catch your server’s eye, mouthing a frantic “check please,” one hand signing an imaginary signature, the other catching yet another water glass before it topples over. (This very scenario happened at least 4X in the past month.)

When I was a couple weeks postpartum with my first, I was pulling my hair up after yet another night of no sleep, and found the back had become so matted, I couldn’t even get a brush through it and had to cut it out. Now I see reels about Everything Showers and just keep scrolling LOL. (And also why I want to try this, have you? It would save me time…and my legs from being so, so dry.)

Sometimes motherhood feels less like adding children to your existing life and more like an absolutely train wreck. I’m in the latter, in case you were wondering.

Summer has been a blur. A happy one full of goodness, but a blur, nonetheless.

My family and I kicked it off with four weeks in my beloved Michigan, spending as much time as we could by Lake Michigan, relishing in the comfort of old friends’ company, and nightly dinners with my parents.

We spent five days back home on the East Coast, barely unpacked, furiously caught up on work, then repacked at 3AM and hopped on a plane to Southern California for a week. It was a family reunion with great-grandparents and aunts and uncles and second cousins and pool time until it was nearly dark.

We floated in the Pacific, marveling at its nearly 80 degree temperature. Elin Strong and I got to hug in person and drink coffee and dream out loud (despite my feral children!). I inhaled the scent of saltwater and strawberry ice cream on my little girl’s hair, her cheeks rosy from the sun and car naps.

And then we returned to Philly at 2AM this Saturday, our internal clocks confused and moody. My kids had to be woken up Saturday and Sunday at 2:30pm and I’ve been doling out children’s melatonin aggresively.1

My MIL asked how our flight home was. I texted her back: “The dude behind me said, ‘You’re a hero’ after we landed if that answers your question.”

My kids may have added a few four-letter words to their vocabulary over our trip, and at one point in our airport journey, I stopped with my suitcase and 40-lb personal item, dripping in sweat, and just closed my eyes while my children cried around me.

I’m an extrovert, but the last couple of months have me skewing far more ambivert. At times, this past week, I’ve needed to sit alone in my bedroom in lieu of the beach, because I have deadlines and the work panic is rising and the quiet is really quite lovely.

Let’s call it what it is, too: Vacation really isn’t vacation when there are children involved and you haven’t brought a full-time nanny. (When are we going to do a Mom of Substack Lotto Pool so we can live that life?!)

Sitting in my empty house with hot coffee this morning, only the birds and the tapping of my computer keys filling the silence had me feeling more blissed out than the best massage I’ve ever had.

In six days, we’re spending a week at the beach in New Jersey (or “down the shore” as they say here), and not gonna lie—it almost feels like too much. Which also annoys me as I type this because whomp-whomp…come ON, I’m going to the beach for crying out loud!

I guess I’d compare it to stuffing yourself with a few more bites of dessert because it’s so freaking good only to feel slightly sick after. We probably won’t return feeling more rested. My husband will take the week off of work and I won’t. I’ll slip in client calls here and there in the mornings and work over nap time (please God, let them nap!) and in the evenings.

I don’t share that to boast about how hard I work (ew), but rather to show you the truth of working for yourself and the reality of being a working parent.

A few weeks ago, I shared that I made $100K working for myself the first six months of the year which I’m proud of—but it’s not without its sacrifices. I didn’t have to get PTO approved by anyone (win) but in order to get paid, I can’t exactly take traditional time off (sacrifice).

Both things can be true. Which, now that I think about it, is basically the thesis statement of motherhood.

Will we do things a little differently next summer? Probably.

Hopefully I’ll be working steadily enough that I can block out some time to fully unplug. It was painful to not go thrifting in the Midwest (the best!) and to take client calls over my birthday. (Even at 41, I’m a bit of a birthday purist.)

I’ve said this before: I’m not someone who’s willing to sacrifice my entire life for my children. Yes, I’d take a bullet for them in a heartbeat—but I won’t forgo my sanity so they can be in multiple sports in a season or make it to a birthday party when it makes no sense for our family’s schedule.

But I do know that the hectic life we’re living right now also means they’re living their best lives this summer, and that makes the chaos, and the slight loss of sanity if I’m being honest, a little easier to swallow.

My oldest was distraught each time we left somewhere. Michigan was the hardest and involved lots of tears, CA was tough too because sharing a bunk room with all your cousins and sneaking screen time is simply paradise to a third grade boy.

My three year old played behind my beach chair for hours at a time, zooming his matchbox cars through the sand and looked happier than ever paddling around the pool at the end of each day with his Puddle Jumper. My youngest started calling her youngest girl cousins her “sisters” and told her friends at preschool this morning exuberantly, “We go to beach!”

It’s a maddening contradiction, isn’t it?

I look at pictures from the past couple of months and already feel nostalgic for a season I’m still living. I know, deep in my bones, how lucky I am to have this life—and still fantasize about sitting alone in my silent house with a hot cup of coffee.

Right now, “finding my way back” looks like a blessedly empty house on a Monday morning. I’ll take it—with an extra shot of espresso TYVM.

Lastly, a few links of things I’ve shopped, written, made, or consumed recently:

This kaftan in aqua & chartreuse. Endless compliments. (See it on above in the photo with Elin Strong!)

Got this in size M for a slightly oversized look

Published this essay on Spread the Jelly — pinch me!

Tim’s aunt cooked this for 50 people and it was SO good. Do NOT skip the red onions.

Bought these in a slight panic shopping for a family photo outfit; did not wear for the photo, but figure they’ll never really go out of style

Been writing for East Fork this year and the newest color, Longleaf, is so gorgeous—and was a joy to write about.

My third grader got these from our candy shop in MI and I ate them all.

Wore this the entire time I was in CA and didn’t get a hint of sunburn.

Last-minute bought this $10 suit for my three year old and am very pleased.

Bought a quick-dry towel because my oldest child’s backpack is small and our regular beach towels, which he needs daily for camp, didn’t fit. It’s now the favorite towel in the house! Lightweight, packs small, dries so fast!

Thank you so much for reading Double Dutch. It truly means the world. I’d love to connect with you even more! Follow me on Instagram. Add me on LinkedIn. Let’s work together.