Bitches, I’M BACK.
That hiatus was a lot longer than I anticipated. But, I’ve been busy momming. And I’ll never apologize for that. I have missed writing, and I’ve missed sharing my crazy life. I like to normalize the chaos of all stages of parenthood. And let me tell you–we are IN IT right now.
For those of you who may be new here: hi (waves). My name is Ally. I’m a mom/bonus mom of 5 (ages 20 months to 13 years). My husband and I work full-time from home as digital marketing professionals (not for ourselves, although that’s a dream I hope to accomplish someday). Because having 5 kids isn’t chaotic enough, we also have 6 dogs in our house (4 belong to me, 3 are rescues; one psychotic Bernedoodle puppy, and my mother-in-law and her 2 doodles live with us, too).
If you’re counting, that’s a whopping total of 8 humans and 6 furry babies under our roof. PLUS, our wonderful angel Julia, who is an Au Pair from Brazil, lives with us and takes excellent care of my babies and keeps me sane. She’s quite literally my angel. Oh, and Dwight the guinea pig. 16 living beings to keep alive and thriving. I’m not busy at all.
I started this blog before I had my youngest (who is now almost 2 years old). Life got real crazy the last 2 years, and other things have taken priority over my writing and blogging. But as my littles get older, I’m slowly finding the time to do some of the things that I love again in this beautiful thing called “free time” (which is a joke when you’re a working mom of 5).
I’m writing this post sitting in a hotel room in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I traveled for a work conference for 3 days. It’s 10 pm, and I’m binging a true crime documentary in a king-size bed, ALONE. This is the first time I’ve traveled without my family since February 2020. I miss them, but I am definitely feeling like a badass Marketing professional again (whereas most days, the imposter syndrome hits me really hard when I’m being torn in 6 different directions with work, kids, appointments…and most recently, a trip to the emergency vet for $1000+).
LIFE–amiright?
So why should you keep reading my ramblings? I haven’t really said anything valuable or particularly interesting, as of yet. I want to share my experiences as a working mom. I believe in being open and communicative about my experiences because you never know who is reading, and how your story might impact their lives and help them.
Perfect example: I am at a digital marketing conference. I met exactly one person this morning during the networking breakfast, a lovely middle-aged man from Charlotte. We hit it off and talked for over an hour. We started talking about our work, our professional experience. But quickly, we got to talking about our kids: particularly, our oldest sons. It turns out, this man’s oldest son (now in his early 30s with a family of his own) went through a remarkably similar to what my oldest is going through.
Now I won’t get into specifics in this post because it’s a lot to get into, and this post is already TLDR. But connecting with this man–this kind stranger with his attractive Southern drawl–made me appreciate those who choose to take their pain and struggles such as this and turn it into something good. To share what you’ve gone through with a child with behavioral and mental health struggles–it takes such a strong, resilient person to share what feels like their biggest failure with complete strangers in the hopes that their stories can help someone else. If this post ever reaches you, Wood from Charlotte, I truly enjoyed our conversation, and I know that your story and honesty are going to help not just me and my family, but so many other people you’re going to meet and share your experience with. You gave me the hope that I’ve been desperately needing that my son can come out on the other side of adolescence and live a productive and happy life, because your son did. Thank you.
I’m going to talk a lot about mental health in my blogs–because it’s important. Because we need to talk about it, and FFS, it’s 2023–let’s lose the stigmas around mental health. You talk about your asthma, or your arthritis. Let’s talk about your mental health and normalize that, too.
Be good, folks. Til next post.
Unapologetically, Ally.