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Jumping for joy over here!!
It’s been one week since we’ve launched The Nourished Maman and the response has been amazing! So many of you have reached out to say how much the site resonates with you. This means the world to me - thank you for your support!!
The website is getting tons of hits, my web developer is blown away :)
Check out NZ Designing for all your branding and website design!
To mark our one week anniversary I want to take a minute to share a little something about my site that I hope you can relate to. I want to talk about the photo of my kids and I on the front page. In all honesty I really hesitated using those pictures on my website. The photos show this beautiful family that must have their sh*t together seemingly living an easy, beautiful life, not the image I want to portray to struggling busy moms! But let me tell you, although that picture seems ‘perfect’, that time for our family was nothing close to perfect. It was likely the hardest season our family has ever endured.
This photo was taken about a month after I had returned back to work and life was more than just busy, it was stressful, exhausting, emotionally draining and a real test to my marriage. Some of you may not know this but my son has Cerebral Palsy - click here to find out more about CP. He may not appear as though he has a disability but at that time in our lives he wasn't walking on his own or even able to really feed himself and I had to now deal with him being under the care of someone else during the day while I worked to bring home a paycheque. On top of that we, as a family, were trying to manage our son’s many therapy appointments. We have been very blessed to live in Ontario where so many services are offered and paid for by the province. Bennett was seeing an Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist, Speech Therapist and also having regular follow ups with Neurologists and Specialists for braces and differing equipment that he was going to require to get around. Managing all these appointments and trying to give 100% (because I'm a bit of an A-type personality) was proving difficult. I showed up to work exhausted, unfocused and unmotivated. Something had to be done. I was spiralling into a bad place and my family was feeling it. My husband and I had to make a massive decision about the future of our family. I couldn't go on working at 40% (mentally and physically) and our son needed to be taken to therapies up to 3 times a week. Something had to give.
In the end after weeks (if not months) of tears, money crunching and long exhausting discussions we decided that the best thing for our family at this time was for me to sacrifice my income for a year so that I could be with our son full-time. It was now going to be on me to take him to therapies and work with him to achieve milestones that kids his age had surpassed years before him. Thankfully, this time off led me to exactly where I am right now. Being off gave me the opportunity to go back to school and study nutrition, something I have been passionate about for over 10 years. But don't think that my time off with him was easy. Now that I was the 'stay at home mom' we had to adjust our expectations on who does what at home and how the new schedule was going to work. It ain't perfect but we are adjusting to this new season and while we aren't on the other side of therapies and appointments, anyone that knows him can attest that the time I took to be with him was worth every single dollar not earned and the debt that we accrued from being off work. Bennett is much more independent and is walking more and more each day.
So there it is - a little glimpse into a photo that seems to be perfect at first glance but isn't always what it seems. Let's remember this when we are scrolling through Instagram feeling bad about the day we just had with our kids while the rest of the Instagram moms seem to have it all together because I bet you they are struggling just like we are ;)
#momlife #picturesworthathousandwords #notalwayswhatitseems #seasonspass #yougotthis #letssupporteachother #thenourishedmaman #nourishedmamannourishedfamily
Much love,
Natasha
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