Modern Motherhood Musings

You’re reading Modern Motherhood Musings, a weekly newsletter written from one mom to another. Each week I share an honest reflection on motherhood, and a collection of things bringing me joy. I’m passionate about community, and I hope that by sharing, we all feel a little less alone.

🖊 This week’s musing…

Towards the end of the pandemic, one of the moms in my neighborhood hosted a wine night. It was nothing fancy. We sat on blankets in the front yard and sipped wine out of plastic cups while we talked for hours. I didn’t really know anyone before showing up that night, but it felt easy to connect over our shared season of motherhood (during a crazy time in history, no less).

Wine night has turned into weeknight pizza parties, when we’re all trying to get through the hours of 5 to 7 p.m., and Saturday morning breakfast taco playdates. It’s turned into “hey, does anyone have some turmeric I can borrow for this new recipe I’m trying” to “can someone watch my youngest for 2 hours, our sitter is out sick.”

Over the years, this group has grown exponentially. It’s a bunch of women saying “I see you. You don’t need to do this alone.” and we’ve adopted the motto of “We’re all doing the same thing, we might as well do it together.”

Most of the time when we get together it’s after the kids have gone to bed, after a full day of working and wrangling kids. It’s so tempting to send a text and bail, or spend another night on the couch scrolling through your phone. It’s so much easier to stay isolated (I’m guilty of it 🙋🏻‍♀️), but so much more rewarding to show up.

I read an article recently that said you need to spend between 40 and 60 hours with someone to become casual friends and about 200 hours to become close friends. That’s a lot of time to commit during a season of life when you're already feeling stretched. I get it.

Making friends is hard. It takes time, and it takes saying yes, over and over again. It’s being vulnerable and admitting when you’re burnt out and touched out and really just need to cry.

Technology has made us more connected than ever, and also lonelier than ever. In a time where social media can make us feel like we’re “less than” or “worse off than” every other mother out there, we need these real-life connections to remind us of our humanity.

✨ What brought me joy this week…

🍌 The best banana bread recipe for those bananas going brown in your kitchen. It mixes in one bowl, which means minimal dishes. Shout out to my SIL for this recommendation.

📚 I love to read, but I hate spending $$ on books. The Libby App lets you borrow audiobooks and ebooks for free. You can even download them directly to your kindle.

• Tip: The most popular books always have a wait list, but you can place a hold on up to 30 books. Fill up all 30 spots with books you want to read. If one becomes available, and you’re not ready for it, you can select “borrow later” and you won’t lose your place in line.

🛠 The Home Depot hosts a FREE kids workshop the first Saturday of the month. They provide all the materials, the kids learn new skills, and you get out of the house on Saturday morning. Win. Win. Win.

👯‍♀️ Creating Community

Each week, the Creating Community section will feature either a question or challenge. The goal is to inspire you to build community, because we all need each other.

Thank you for being here, I truly mean it. If you enjoyed this newsletter and aren’t already a subscriber, use the button below!

Happy Friday! I hope you all eat some great Super Bowl snacks this weekend. What do we think? Is Taylor Swift going to make it to the game or not?