My husband, Adam, left this morning for a conference in Houston, TX.  He's gone to conferences before, but this is the first one since Rowan was born.  I always have had a lot of respect for single parents, when he's gone that respect just grows and grows.  Each conference he's gone to has presented me with new and different challenges as a parent.  The first conference Kara was just a year old and she got her first big illness.  I was unable to get much sleep or food.  All she wanted was to lay on my lap and be held.  Going to the bathroom was an adventure: have you ever tried to hitch your pants up when your child is strapped to you and throwing up at the same time?  Other conferences I've had the joys of explaining to Kara why her dad isn't there and why he wasn't going to be home for x days.   I got quite skilled at keeping her distracted from his absence.  This time though I am presented with 2 new challenges.  The first being that I now have two children, one that is awake frequently during the night and needs much of my attention (and body).  The second is one I had not thought of before.

How do you express emotions around your children?  Prior to Kara when Adam would go to a conference I would have cried a bit, gone home, eaten junk food and watched TV, read some books, done a puzzle and stayed up way past my bedtime.  Now I know better than to spend my time watching TV, staying up late and eating junk food.  I'm sure I'll read plenty of books and may do some puzzles. Granted the books may not be more complicated than naming dinosaurs and the puzzles will have less than 50 pieces.  But what to do about the desire to cry?  Do I show Kara how sad I am that her dad has left?  Do I let her see how worried I am about how our time alone will go and his safety?  Or do I keep a stiff upper lip and keep on going as if nothing has changed?  If I don't express my emotions, in a healthy way that is, am I teaching Kara to not acknowledge her own emotions?  Does that teach her to be a stoic and afraid of emotions?  If I show her the tears does that then lead her to fear and worry when she shouldn't have that burden?  Will she feel she needs to take care of me since I am sad?  This also leads me to examine how we deal with Kara's tantrums and other outbursts of emotion.  Right now we ask her to calm down and say that once she is calm we can talk about what is bothering her. But does that teach her that she shouldn't express the emotion?  Would it be better to say "wow, you are really sad/angry/upset.  Let's take a moment to be that way, then we can calm down and talk about what has made you feel that way"?  We do try to acknowledge the emotion by saying "you sound really sad", but is that enough?  Do we need to give her more space to feel and express the emotion?  I want to raise children that are not afraid of their emotions and can express them in a healthy way.  I don't want them learning to stuff their feelings down or to think that it's not ok to let others know how they are feeling.  Emotions can be powerful and influence our thinking more than we often realize or admit.  To have a healthy relationship with emotions would allow them to recognize, feel, and then move on past the emotions so they do not influence their decisions excessively.  The question is- how to achieve that.

Submitted by Heidi-rose Creuzinger, member of NorthMetroDCMommies.  Heidi-rose blogs at Terror at 3 Feet & Rising.

So, let us get right to it.

I am guessing that there are minimally a few things you would have different about your body and that at least some of your time and energy is invested into mulling this over; well "sweet pea" that, is an exceptional waste of both resources.

It has taken me a very long time to learn to love myself and becoming a mother played a significant role. It all started when I decided that my post-pregnancy body was disgusting, I was so miserable and obsessed about it constantly. It brought misery to every area of my life, I stopped taking care of myself, I didn't shave for 6 months (by the time I did my landlord had to snake our drain because I clogged it). I would not let my partner anywhere near me and when we did have sex I was disgusted by it. I would spend hours looking in the mirror, for the sole purpose of intensifying my hatred.

About 4 months after I returned to my full-time job following my maternity leave, I quit. I needed to be at home with my son. He had 2 very invasive, painful surgeries during that time and I just had to be home with him. I took a part-time waitressing job and that was that, I was a stay at home mom. One day shortly after I was home full-time with him and following one of the above mentioned surgeries, we were hanging out taking pictures. Now he had to have arm restraints on so that he could not do any harm to the site of his incision, he was around ten months old.

So, here I am sitting on the couch watching my little man crawl and climb with these "no, no's" holding his arms perfectly straight, laughing and smiling and doing all of the things that they said he couldn't; and it occurred to me that I was a jerk. This child grew in me, this body nurtured his, and every part of him was a part of every part of me. He had already endured so very much; he had a face sewn together when he was just 4 months old and had just had the inside of his mouth sewn together and his nose broken, and here I was whining and sobbing about stretch marks and extra weight. I understood in those moments that my body was what it was because it was supposed to be, I had gained and grown, stretched and changed to accommodate him. So there it was, my very first real moment of truly loving my body, the body that had gifted me my son.

As women we are bombarded day in and day out with images and information that defines beauty for us, it comes to us from every direction at various different volumes. So what is all of information telling us? For the most part we are presented with an unattainable standard, a grand lie that whispers to the majority of us that we are simply not enough. For some of us, we are just not thin enough, others too thin, our cheekbones and bums not high enough, our breasts not perky enough, and blah, blah, blah.

You are indeed Beautiful regardless of these silly and unrealistic messages, how do I know this? Understand that all Women are Beautiful, each and every one of us. What is the benefit of ignoring or disregarding our Beauty, what is the pay off for treating ourselves poorly and hating any aspect of our bodies?

Beauty is found in simply being a Woman, Beauty is found in the diversity of Women. Beauty is confident and strong, self-aware and actualized. Beauty is about identifying one's personal style and "rockin" the "what" out of it. Beauty is not giving a "what" about what anyone else says or thinks Beauty is, it is ignoring the images and voices that tell us that we are not Beautiful. Beauty is seeing the Women on television and in magazines and recognizing their Beauty without using it to define what we are Not. Beauty is whatever we believe is Beautiful about ourselves.

It really is that simple, I think my larger behind is fly, some girls may think their tiny behinds are fly, just stop looking at other chics and finding the "imagined" ugly in you. Look at other Women and admire their own unique Beauty while embracing and cherishing your own.

In the world of me I have decided that being a Woman makes me absolutely spectacular. I adore my own abilities to create and hold another, warm in my womb while it grows, its energy glowing bright in my belly. I respect that my body was made to carry this being and cultivate it with spirit and structure alike, sharing my vital organs to assure its health and safety. I find my woman's body, spirit and structure, to be like the earth; giving and breathing life, sustaining and nurturing, protecting and destroying. Knowing that I cannot have anymore children strengthened my appreciation for the plethora of greatness my body offers beyond creating and carrying a child. I also believe firmly that a woman is to be the governor of her decision to bear children. Before becoming un-expectantly pregnant, I would not have chosen to have children.

For those of us, who are not able to have children or choose not to, we must remember that our body is the house of our true and deepest self, we must create, cultivate, nurture, and protect this self with the same ferocity we would our unborn child. This helps me to introduce you to my own adoration of my ability to create and hold my true self, warm in my centers as it grows, its energy glowing brightly in my chakras. What I mean by all of this is we as Women have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and each other.

My woman's body is plush and ripe, my own to bring pleasure and gift it to others, my own to decorate and adorn, my own to cleanse and forgive. My own to protect, my body should be free from the harm of myself and others; never to be taken, raped, or defiled. My choices are my own about my body and I should live free of ridicule and judgment. I believe that a Woman is the master of her own body and she belongs to no one other than herself or whomever she gifts herself to. If someone else is to take of my body without my unmitigated consent, I am entitled to re-claim and seek vengeance for this despicable wrong.

As a woman I understand that power resides within and around me and I accept my responsibility to embrace and use that power. Knowing that being a Woman means I am Brilliant and Beautiful, Kind, Caring, and Compassionate, Empathetic and Gifted, Nurturing and Emotional while also recognizing that I am Fierce and Strong, Competitive and Driven, Wild and Intelligent, Rational, Disciplined, and Physically Competent. I am Everything, Everywhere, in Every Woman, and so are you.

Originally published on CharlotteMommies.com