What is your motivation?

I had some terrific feedback after my post on The Typical Day Of A Stay At Home Mum. Thank you to all those who left comments and sent emails.

I also had a couple of interesting discussions with friends (who are also stay at home mums) who read my blog and two of them asked me the same question:

“How do you get up so early and keep going for so long?”

I will openly admit that there are days when I have to drag myself out of bed when the first digit on the clock is a “6”, but it is past experiences motivate me to get up and get going.

There have been times when I have slept in until 7.00am and then everything becomes a rush and the smooth start to the day disappears. I end up hurrying the kids and a lack of calmness fills the house. It also usually means that we then don’t have time to walk to school, so we don’t have the enjoyable time strolling along in the fresh air that we are used to.

Getting the timing right for us as a family in the morning is the biggest factor in having a stress free morning before school. Sometimes it can be very difficult to turn around a bad start to the day. So when I am lying in bed and really don’t feel like getting up, memories of those previous scenes enter my head and this motivates me to get up.

It is the same throughout the day as well. At night when the children are settled in bed and I then move on to setting the table for breakfast the next day, making a start on the school lunch boxes etc, I do so not because it my natural preferred pass time, but because they all contribute to a smoother running day for the family.

One thing that I have noticed over the years as a mum and I think that this would apply to most stay at home mums and those who also work away from the home as well, is that the mood of the house revolves around “mum’s mood”.

If mum is having a bad day, feeling grumpy or over tired, I find that the children pick up on this and often these feeling spread through the house. Conversely if mum is happy and cheery with lots of energy, this mood seems to infiltrate the house.

It is a significant responsibility to wear every day of the year. There are days when I feel a bit worn out and tired and if the children catch this, it is is then compounded by children who start niggling, complaining and whining. An ordinary day can turn quite quickly to a “bad day”.

My motivation to avoid these days then can be illustrated in my daily routine and the way I look after myself. To stay happy and full of energy I need to eat well, rest, exercise and socialise.

With my size family, this does mean getting up early each day and that I need to make the most productive use of my time to squeeze everything in, but to me it is worth it to have my happy family around me.

How does it work in your house? Are you the key to its smooth running and how do you deal with this responsibility?