The Temper Log Evolved

​One day, after an exhausting Target run, I pushed the pile of permission slips on my kitchen table out of the way and started writing it.

On the inside of a red spiral bound I scrawled:

Column #1 Where were we? I filled in “Target Superstore” in the blank below.

Column #2 What happened? 

I wrote: “Tom tried to kick and bite me at the checkout stand. He wanted candy."
(Why do they put that stuff there? Sadists.)

Column #3 What did I do? My answer: “Counted to 10 and left the store.”

Sounds simple enough. I left the store. Retreated from the store might be a more accurate description of that suburban day. I retreated while the plastic bins I had carefully selected so that I could “get organized” lay abandoned at the check out area. I pushed a long fire engine shaped cart through the automatic exits as my daughters 7 and 10 years old kept up in their matching Hanna Anderson dresses.

Tom wailed.

I tried to look like something other than an abject child abuser as I hurried toward my Honda Odyssey minivan in the parking lot. “He's tired”, I said with a forced smile to a concerned looking older woman.
Tom, age 4, was screaming like Theon in a torture scene from Game of Thrones. The girls tried to look adorable and well-behaved. They knew "Mommy" was having a bad day.

Being a mom is hard work.

There's something about the day-in, day-out stress of taking care of kids, houses, pets, parents, and birthday party gifts that drags down even the most enthusiastic and adorable mom.

And this is before you go to work or run your small, medium, or multi-national company. And now you're supposed to be a
Sex Goddess.

Uh, no.

It doesn't work like that.

But here's what they didn't tell you about being a mom.

When you pour too much of yourself into being a super patient, loving woman for your kids all day every day (even if you're working virtually while they “work on their homework” lol), you're depleting your own juiciness, the part of you that really defines who you are as a woman, a lover and a great mother.

The super patient me who finally just stopped taking Tom to Target for a while because neither of us could handle it, was also someone who hid my own sexuality behind a calendar filled with volunteer obligations like the Glen Lake Carnival or Girl Scout Cookie Go Day.

It took years before I realized that while I loved my kids (and still do), focusing on my own needs made me a happier woman overall and a better mother.

You don't have to be a Super Mom who volunteers to mute your own sexuality and ruin your sex life. It's actually uncommon for you to NOT lose track of any semblance of eroticism in Mom Land.

Unless you take active measures to fight off whatever that is that's shut down your connection to your true self, you won't get the benefit of experiencing the WHOLE YOU — not just the super patient part that puts up with too much and asks for too little.

It took something like The Tantrum Log for me to begin seeing the patterns of my life. But it wasn't for years that I discovered the full range of myself as a sexual being — while being a good enough mother. It was (and is) a journey worth taking. You can take it too.

Like anything worth doing, the first step is the hardest. But once you recognize the little voice within you that's reminding you of who you are, you'll get stronger. It's in you. No matter how old you are or what's been happening in your life, you can become a woman who is alive again - even if you're Mom.

It's true.

What would it look like to remember that part of who you are? The authentic part that feels good from the inside out in every way? Email me and let me know - [email protected] I'll personally get back to you.