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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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A Full Lap

Jun 30 3 Comments

I have a bad habit of romanticizing working parenthood, even though I live it every day and really should know better by now.

All week, I look forward to Friday, and not just because it promises the coming of the weekend. I still have eight hours of work to put in, but I get to do those hours from home instead of at my office.

The romantic side of me dreams that this Friday will be different: my 15-month-old daughter will play independently and quietly all morning, allowing me space to focus on my perfectly achievable to-do list and to relish the work I love. My coffee will stay hot. I’ll take a break for lunch and play time, and we’ll run around the house and dissolve into giggle fits. She’ll go down for a long nap, and I’ll have three hours of uninterrupted work time, allowing me to plow through my remaining tasks.

There will be room on my plate for everything. There will be room on my lap for everyone.

***

On my real Friday morning, my phone’s alarm begins to chime, starting low and increasing its volume as I claw my way out of the deep circles of sleepiness at 5:30 a.m. I stumble to the bathroom and scroll through Instagram while brushing my teeth, a habit I know I need to kick (the scrolling, not the brushing).

Assessing my reflection and weighing the cost of the time it would take to shower, I decide to pull my dirty hair back into a messy bun, but not the glamorous kind. I tiptoe down my creaky stairs to start the coffee while I cringe and pray with every step that my daughter doesn’t hear me. If I’m lucky, I’ll have about an hour of uninterrupted work time before she wakes up.

Selah wakes at 7:00 a.m. on the dot, and after a breakfast filled with demands and shrieks for more, I open my laptop and get back to work on the manuscript I’m editing. My daughter, who was playing happily on the floor fifteen seconds ago, breaks down crying when she sees I have something in my lap that is not her. I turn on the TV, I turn off the TV; I bring out toys I hid last week and the puffs she’s not even hungry for, hoping to distract her and buy myself work time in five-minute increments.


To read more about this day in the life, my mom guilt, and some musings on craft/creativity/calling, head over to Coffee + Crumbs for the full post.

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Filed Under: Motherhood Tagged With: choices, creativity, family, motherhood, parenting, priorities, values, working, working mom, working motherhood

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
We’re in the thick of a collective physical, spi We’re in the thick of a collective physical, spiritual, and emotional season of waiting. A nonexhaustive list: Waiting for a vaccine. Waiting for the pandemic to relent. Waiting for test results. Waiting to hug and kiss and hold the hands of our loved ones. Waiting for children. Waiting with children. Waiting on children. Waiting for rescue. Waiting for rest. Waiting for the birth of Christ. Waiting for the birth of a child. Waiting for a new revelation. Waiting for 2021. Waiting for January 20. Waiting for justice. Waiting for movement. Waiting for stillness. Waiting to be seen. Waiting to fade away. Waiting with hope. Waiting with heartache. Waiting with anticipation.

Whatever you are waiting on today, may this prayer be a companion and encouragement to stay the course. You are not alone. We wait with you. 🌈
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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