It just feels like something is out of place or not quite working. And here’s what I think it is. I think it is the convergence of days getting longer, brighter, and us wanting to spend time outside. Converging with these kind of weird events, these extra events that are happening. So it’s not only your regular life, but we fork in all of these extra events, right?

First communion, graduation. For us it’s soccer season. I dunno, there’s a ton of stuff In May, Mother’s Day, every recital thing that your kid needs to do, school deciding they want you to come to the school for all the things. And so there’s extra stuff on your plate and you’re just kind of itching to put winter behind you and to move on.

Now, obviously geographically where you live, that might change a little bit, but there’s kind of this just like, I wanna get out, I wanna go to the beach. I wanna sit by lake feeling. And the world is saying, Hey, I need you to work harder and clean your house and get presents for 16 different people and think about a bunch of stuff that you don’t wanna think about right now.

Also, for moms, they’re watching their kids experience the same thing. So their kids are like, I don’t wanna do my homework, I don’t wanna do homeschooling. I want to pout a little bit. Like, why are you making me clean my room? Like they also have this kind of, I wanna get out and adventure and be outside. Feeling. 

And then we really don’t like watching that in them, and we think that we’ve totally failed at school and we’re raising entitled bratty children who don’t know how to do their chores anymore. And we’re feeling. Like failures.

You know, I think that’s a common feeling of moms in May, particularly around homeschooling moms as they’re trying to decide, gosh do we push through and finish the curriculum that I told myself in the fall that I wanted to finish or not?

And I think the same, a similar thing happens with moms whose kids are in school. While the curriculum is laid out, the teachers have the homework, we kind of start phoning it in a little bit more, or the kids start phoning it in and we kind of just let it happen, right? We’re like, yeah, that paper is good enough, that project’s good enough.

Like we are all just so ready to be done, whatever that means to you in this month. And yet we’re being told that we have to stay inside, keep working. I don’t know, and it makes us feel weird, and everybody I talk to is just feeling a little bit weird right now. 

So I like to compare this to the. Ninth month of pregnancy, okay? In the ninth month of pregnancy, you’re like. super uncomfortable. You’re tired. Things feel weird. You wanna have this baby, but it’s also a little scary to have the baby. 

And you also have this kind of weird nesting instinct. It’s not weird, but it comes out in weird ways in women, this nesting instinct where you start freaking out about things that maybe just maybe. Aren’t actually as important as they feel. 

So when I’m coaching a woman in her ninth month of pregnancy, I’ll just say, Hey, maybe this is true, but maybe you’re also just hormonal and freaking out ’cause this baby’s about to come. If you still care about this after the baby comes, we’ll coach on it. Okay? I really get them just to kind of put a pin in some of their crazy and swirling thoughts and fears. 

I just say, Hey let’s just put those in a box. So just put that box on the shelf and let’s bring it back out after you have this baby. And this is my message to all of you. I think we are in a similar place and I want you to just put all the stuff that you feel weird about, like the kids aren’t gonna make it. I’m a total failure. I’m doing a bad job with school. My kids are not that athletic. 

Whatever it is. I don’t know what you’re worried about. I just know that everybody that I’m talking to right now is having some sort of level of worry. I want you to put it in a box and I don’t want you to put it on the shelf and we’re gonna pull it out in June. Okay? We’ve got two more weeks. Okay. We’re halfway through the month. You got two more weeks. 

For me, it’s, you know, soccer practice and I don’t know why, but the one kid who goes to school and they’re super chill. I love the school and they just had so many events planned in May, so many. I’m like, you guys, it’s like you had no events the whole year and then you had them all in one month. So just a bunch of those things. 

And you know, the kids are like, we wanna go swimming, we wanna go to the lake. And it’s too cold to do that. So that is weird right now, but we’re so close. We just put all our winter stuff away, everything. And then it rained for four days and people were like, I’m cold. And I’m like, yeah, but we did just put a lot of those fleeces away and I don’t wanna get them out. 

So it’s just a weird time. It’s a weird pocket. We’re almost through it, and I think a lot of this stuff is gonna resolve in two weeks, and then you’re just gonna, you’re gonna feel relief. You might have different things going on ’cause we still have children and they do the things that children do and that drives us bananas. But I think that our ability to handle that in June is so much better because we don’t have all the things. All the things. All the things. Okay.

So here’s your game plan. When you start worrying about anything that isn’t taking place in the next two weeks, anything, I want you to go Shh brain. Shh. I love you. We’ll talk about that in two weeks if you still wanna talk about it. Okay. It’s just a shortcut. We’re just short-cutting the worry process and kind of tricking our brain a little bit by being like, Hey, we’ll think about that on June 1st. Okay. 

The next thing that I want you to do is to plan your days more lovingly. You probably are still acting like the days are the same, and of course they’re not, and you need to show up like a better personal assistant for yourself in these next two weeks. I want you waking up and looking at your calendar and being like, girl I’m gonna get you an iced coffee at two.

It’s written down and here’s your water, and we’re gonna put string cheese in your purse because we’re gonna pick those kids up at three, but we’re not gonna be home until five. And we’re gonna give them some string cheese protein so that they don’t lose their minds before we get home. And we might need to set out an outfit the night before, maybe yours, maybe a kiddos.

We might need to be leaning on crock pot meals, instant pot meals, grab and go meals. I’m a big fan of. Rolling things up in a tortilla. We call them tortilla roll-ups, and you roll up tons of stuff in a tortilla and it’s just like an instant dinner. I’m also a big fan of snacky dinner. My kids love snacky dinner and snacky dinner is just wait for it. Snacks. 

It’s like olives and pickles and salami. We don’t really usually have crackers, but if you had crackers, you could do that. What else do we do for snacky dinner? It’s just random bite-sized things that are already ready. That’s what snacky dinner is. Cheese snacky dinner is your friend, and then really taking care of yourself for the last two hours of the day.

When I start to, I feel my battery go boo. I usually try to push myself to get like 15 more minutes out of myself. Like, Hey, can we just tidy up the kitchen though? You got 15 more minutes in you. I need you to give it to me, and then we’re gonna sit in bed and do nothing. 

How can you take care of yourself at the end of the day? Because this is a marathon and we’ve got two more weeks to go. We made it through Mother’s Day. I’m proud of you. But there’s more things. There’s more things to get through.

The news about the Pope is very exciting. It feels like it’s been a whole month since that happened. There’s just been so much. It feels very exciting though. It was wild. I was on a team call when it happened and I was just like, you guys, we have to stop and pay attention to this.

And I don’t know. It’s been really profound to me because I’ve never had the thought. I could be raising a future Pope. I don’t think any of us did. I think I just had this idea that the Europeans were like stupid Americans, and there was no way that we would ever, ever have a pope that was American. I think a lot of us thought that.

I’m not sure why, but I would’ve felt very strongly about it. I would like you guys know, there’s really no chance that it’s ever gonna be an American, and now it just feels so fun and exciting Chicago, and so you could be raising the next Pope. 

But I’ll tell you what it’s gonna take. It’s gonna take you loving the Lord and being at peace, not being ruffled. Being willing to say no. Being willing to simplify things.

You know, peace often requires a great deal of humility. Let’s say that your friend-like hand makes incredible presence for the teachers, and they’re so thoughtful. And you’re like, I’m gonna buy them coffee gift cards. It takes great humility sometimes to just go, I’m gonna do the thing that’s less impressive. And it’s okay if people think less about me.

But I don’t want to be stressed out because being stressful, I mean I don’t wanna call it sinful. I’m sure there’s a version of it that is some simple, and I’m sure there’s a version of it that it isn’t, but. Gosh, you know how confident are you that you are not choosing so many things or choosing them in a manner that is keeping you from the peace that God is calling you to?

So what can you say no to? What can you simplify? Where can you let go of your ego or your high standards? Because God doesn’t care if you have high standards, if then you are fritzed out all the time.

A lot of women when I’m coaching them will say, well, I’m just a perfectionist. And I just think that actually isn’t who you are. That’s just something you’ve told yourself. Doesn’t even really mean anything clear by the way. 

And you can choose when not to do that, and you can look at it and say, I see that this thought, this identity is stealing my peace, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I’ll tell you what will break you of perfectionist tendencies is starting a business. Being an entrepreneur will break you of that very quickly because there is no, you cannot be a perfectionist and run a business

And it isn’t who you are, who you are as a child of God. He thinks you’re beautiful. He’s proud of you. He does not want you to be stressed. He’s promised us peace in any storm. He loves you so much.

And I want you just to let him be with you everyday in these next two weeks, and go to him for advice. Go to him for comfort. Go to him for encouragement. I will ask the Lord all the time. I’ll be like, Hey, I just need you to gimme a good pep talk right now, Lord. And then I just imagine what Jonathan Rumi, Jesus would say.

And he’d be like, you’re doing a good job kid. I’m proud of you. Keep going. I know this is hard. You got this. And I just let him give me rest first, and then give me encouragement. And he is always there to do that for you. Always.

So I was coaching a woman about the weirdness of May and she said, you know what? Just hearing you say that other people are going through, that makes me feel so much better. Which is why we should be living in a community. We really should, and I’m sorry that we don’t, we should be living with other people so that we know, oh, this is just a weird time of year. Nothing is wrong with me. 

And then I was at soccer practice and it was raining lightly, but enough that I didn’t wanna walk. I normally walk the whole time. And so I went onto Instagram and did an Instagram live kind of about this. And it really resonated with people who were watching it. So you can go check that out.

I have started posting on Instagram, so go check me out over there. “Catholic Mom Calm” and I’m gonna do more content there. I am going to help more moms find peace by posting on Instagram. 

Although what’s really interesting, and I’m sure I’ll share the details of this later, I’m still keeping my phone rules really, really tight. Because I don’t want to use my phone anymore than I’m using it, but I just have now made Instagram one of the things that’s on my calendar, and I go in and I do it, and then I leave.

So you’re not alone. This is a weird time. May is a little bit bananas for a lot of reasons, and you can do it. It’s only crazy because you have such a wild and beautiful life, right? Because you have these people that you love and there are these activities that they’re part of that they love and you wanna support them, and you believe in them.

And you wanna put happiness and goodness into the world. That’s what we buy, teacher presence. We just wanna say, Hey teacher, I appreciate you and that’s a beautiful thing. Just pick something that doesn’t feel stressful. And if your daughter has a piano recital, maybe just don’t freak out about her hair. 

You know, there’s like a good enough hair level and we can shoot for that. And if there’s anything that’s not required, I would say no. If it’s in May, I’d be like, Hey, can we do that in the different time. Can I not go to this at all? Or can we do split teams? My husband and I are a fan of one of us going with one or a couple of the children and not taking the whole family.

That it isn’t always possible, but where it’s possible. I really shoot for that. Okay, you got this. I believe in you. You can survive this. It’s a weird time. You’re not alone. And God is always ready to sit with you in your pain and your discouragement, whatever you’re feeling, and then he’s there to bring you to peace and to give you encouragement to keep going.

Do not forget to pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord doesn’t sound great, but it’s the one that helps us grow in temperance. So I really like that one. And he’s just with you, my friends. 

Alright, I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day