I woke up with a grateful heart, but recognize that this day is hard (for the lack of a better word) for many including myself; some for new, novel reasons. I have been fortunate enough to celebrate Mother’s Day with my mom and family for the past 30 plus years. Some years called for a lavish celebration while others were celebrated more intimately; but nonetheless a celebration ensued. However, this year, due to COVID19, many of us are unable to celebrate with our mothers and mother-figures because we may live in different cities and are social distancing out of our love and desire to keep one another safe and healthy.

There are definite perks to this drastic change in our lifestyle and daily routine. In this time, it has been nice to see my husband actually relax and get back to engaging in the basic activities that we enjoyed individually as well as those that brought us together when we were a dating couple. During this quarantine, on most days, our house is a whole vibe filled with good music and movies, good food and good times. It has been rewarding to be able to be playful, jovial and carefree, in a sense. We’ve both recognize that we have very limited control in this situation. The things that we can control are the energy that we put into our household and into one another.

As parents, it is our responsibility to provide the educational foundation to our children before they attend school. Once they enter the school setting, it is also our responsibility to support their teachers and staff in ensuring that our children are successful. This is not the time to take a hand-off approach, but to become more involved than ever. As a working outside of the home suburban chic mom, my children started attending day care (we’ve always called it school) very early on. While the daycares and preschools have been instrumental in the learning processes, we make it a point to reinforce learning in our home. My husband, I and our entire village have always been involved with our children’s educational pursuits from practicing ABC’s, 123’s, colors, themes math and reading.

I wanted to pass along some tips to help any other moms that may be struggling to equip their child with the basic academic skills they’ll need BEFORE starting kindergarten. Teaching my children their ABC’s was the easy part, but helping her put them all together in the form reading tested skills that I had never tapped into. So check out what helped us!

People are a trip.  They will pray fervently for the Lord to remove them from a difficult situation and place them into a better one.  However, when the Lord sends THE boat that He intends to use to get them to the other side, they hold their feet and refuse to get on. Mannnn, people are a trip.  It’s me. I’m people.

The Lord has continually prepared and provided me with new opportunities, but because they weren’t packaged like I wanted or expected them to be… I rejected them. Whether it was due to my fear of the unknown or my limiting expectations, that nature is disrespectful to God’s omniscient presence and power as well as His divine will for our lives.  How do we overcome our human nature that can predispose us to such unbecoming characteristics as worry, fear and self-doubt?  These characteristics only serve to limit our progress and impede us from enjoying the fullness of God. 

The 3 things that I am currently using to help me overcome the paralyzing effects of fear:

“A large percent of women (can’t recall exactly) will be the financial head of their household at some point; due to the fact that they never marry, they divorce or their spouse dies.” This is true tea because I know of so many women that this applies to.  Even if these particular circumstances don’t apply to you, can you guarantee that you or your spouse won’t lose your job?   So instead of being financially oblivious, we need to recognize that our realities can change within the blink of an eye.  Proverbs 6:6-8 says, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.”  Let’s be wise like the ant so that we can eat all year long regardless of the uncertainties each season may bring.

Whew, Chile! When I performed a google search for the definition of the word “suburban” I was shocked and appalled, to say the least.  Per Google, part b of the definition is contemptibly dull and ordinary.  I don’t agree, but I digress. Chic [pronounced SHēk] means elegantly and stylishly fashionable.  And mom, of course, is being one’s mother. 

It was important for me to identify the idea behind my blog and to further explain what it means to be a suburban chic mom!  Ultimately, I feel like my life can be broken down into two distinct phases: BC (Before Children) and AC (After Children). 

Women are the backbone of the world and without us (and of course, GOD) NOTHING is possible.  I constantly astounded by the female body. As mothers, we create, carry and birth life into this world.  After that, we’re capable of nursing and nourishing our babies from our own bodies, if we choose to go that route.  The post baby admiration is often short-lived because then come the pressures of society to snap back to your pre-baby body in 3-2-1 seconds.  For some women, the snap back is real, quick and quite natural. Kudos to you if you fall into that category… it’s all love!  For other women, their career, image and livelihood rely on their physical appearance so they feel inclined to snapback with the quickness.  

I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog for quite some time.  Initially, I thought it would be a good creative outlet for me because I love writing. I always have. So for the last couple of years, I would draft a few blog post ideas and then put it on the back burner for months before picking it back up to start the same counterproductive cycle over and over again. 

I allowed poor time management skills, fear and the lack of courage to hold me back from going forward with my vision.  I mean I purchased the domain for my website well over a year ago, but again I became intimidated… this time by all of the intricacies involved in actually building a website.  Who Me? I can’t? No one wants to hear from another mom blogger?  Who would care to read what I have to say? All of these are negative thoughts that I allowed to seep into my mind and spirit and deter me from fulfilling my PURPOSE.