GDMFSOB

2 Comments June 12, 2018 drworobec

Are you ready for some sap?

My little girl turned six years old earlier this Spring. But to me, perhaps because she’s my last baby, she’s still oh-so-little. When my son was six, I remember thinking he was such a big boy and was capable of so much, and yet when she, my second child, is six I have tended to underestimate her and “baby” her along the way. I’ve noticed this pattern in my parenting over the past couple of years and have really tried to change it. After all, if I’m raising a strong, confident daughter, then coddling her will do her no favours.

When she’s the first one up in our household, she’s taken to going into the living room, getting herself some cereal and turning on SportsCentre on TV. We have a no-TV-before-school rule, but c’mon, sports highlights don’t count.

Last weekend was a particularly early wakeup for her, so after her breakfast and TSN fix, she got out her paper and markers and made this creation:

It says “My family is the most important thing to me in my life!”

I sobbed when she showed it to me. And then she cried because I was crying. You can see how sensitive souls tend to raise other sensitive souls, can’t you?

Deep within my tears was a feeling of tremendous pride mixed with a touch of GDMFSOB (look it up) we are DOING THIS RIGHT.

Mic drop.

No joy = goes.

2 Comments May 29, 2018 drworobec

It’s so true that you need to fill your life with things that bring you joy. The older I get, the more I have learned to get rid of the “filler” and fill my life as much as possible with good. Have you read Marie Kondo’s “Spark Joy” or “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”? You should. And while these books speak to a way to declutter your environment, and therefore your life, what they really did for me was to make me look through the lenses of importance and priorities.

Marie Kondo recommends that if you’re decluttering, you should hold the item and see if you feel joy. No joy? Get rid of it. Joy? It stays. You can apply this principle to life in general. Friends. Obligations. Career. Living situation. Lifestyle.

Joy = stays. No joy = goes.

This is a short post for you today, but as I sat on my couch to write, my mind kept wandering back to joy. I always try to write about what’s closest to my heart in the moment, and the purpose of this blog has always been to show you who I am, so that you can get to know me. Because if you know me better, you’ll trust me more, and it makes sense to me that better doctor/patient relationships equal better treatment outcomes. And what’s closest to my heart right now is joy. You see, we have a family friend who is nearing the end of her life, and I can promise you that she’s not thinking about how big her house is or how clean her floors are or what her hair looks like. I hope that she’s thinking about the things that brought her joy through her seventy-something years of life.

So, fill it up friends. Fill up your lives with joy, whatever that joy may look like to you (because psssst…… joy looks different to all of us).

I Don’t Make my Kids Make their Beds

Leave a comment September 29, 2015 drworobec

messyhair

I don’t make my kids make their beds.

There, I’ve said it. It’s like admitting a dirty little secret. So I’m airing my dirty laundry, and there you have it: I don’t make my kids make their beds.

I grew up being expected to make my bed daily, and I am actually quite a neat-freak, so this fact is a bit out of character for me. But truth be told, I don’t make my own bed either (unless tossing a duvet across it counts….. and even that only gets done half the time). The reality is, it’s just not that important to me. Life is very full and very busy and I am having too much fun going to the park or heading to work or reading with my kids to be worried about unmade beds.

It took me awhile to become comfortable with this fact. I often get stricken with the ‘I-shoulds’, and being okay with unmade beds seemed to go against what parenting books would advise. But as life got busier, one child turned into two, and my caring-what-other-people-think declined, I came to peace with my choice. I do have some stipulations with this decision; I have taught my children how to make their beds, and I will quickly pull up the covers on a disheveled mess before company comes over. But the reality is, in my day-to-day normalcy, unmade beds are a staple.

And I’m okay with that.