Who gets the most attention in your home? Your special needs child? The baby? Your husband (haha) or you? That last one was a good joke too.

But seriously. Who gets the attention? How do you find balance? In our home surprisingly it’s not the special needs kid or even the baby… Sorry, still not the husband either 😜. It’s the middle child! I know most middle kids complain about not getting enough attention (I know mr. C complains), but if anything is going on, our middle child mr. C is right there climbing over faces to find the spot light. Heck if nothing is going on he’s still talking to make sure he’s heard.

How I try to balance, share, spread the love:

Date night

This is where I try to give my husband my undivided attention. This is just us time to reconnect and be husband and wife, not just mommy and daddy.

Lunch date

This is 1 hour a week, occasionally 2 hours if I’m lucky. This is me time where I get together with a friend and just talk, girl talk. I love my husband, but I need other adult conversations that aren’t just my kid’s teachers.

Bedtime stories

This is kid time, but more importantly each child gets to take a turn sitting on my lap while I read the story they picked out before bed. This has been hard for little miss A to learn to share me, but has been amazing for her older brothers mr. L & mr. C to get a chance to snuggle without having to fight for it.

Still Nursing

This is obviously baby time, and baby snuggle time. They are only little once and one day they probably won’t try to sit in my lap anymore. So I choose to enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Walking into School

This is mr. L time. As you can see it’s short, it’s the time I walk my oldest into school, out of school, and drop off and pick up at his ABA therapy. But I try to take advantage of these times. We talk, joke, laugh, dance, tickle and chase.

Always Listening

This is mr. C’s time, which is monopolized as almost all the time. In the car, bath, kitchen, couch…. you get the picture. If listening was a muscle I might get mistaken for Wonder Woman 😘

Phone Calls/ Texts

This is the time I give to extended family and friends. I try to text my siblings 1-2 times a month, more if I’m lucky, call or text my parents once a week and call my grandma every week.

I mean I know we are all trying and yet we are all getting pulled in 100 different directions; relationships, work, chores, bills, maybe church, physical health, possibly dating, mental health, and the list goes on and on.

But it’s important to step back, evaluate, and re-prioritize. A big part of this is to remember it’s not just internal evaluating, it takes speaking up and checking in with those you care about. Occasionally I check in with my husband, “Do you feel like you are getting attention? Do you know I love you?” And same with my kids, “Do you know I love you? Are you happy?”

And don’t forget you

Speaking up for yourself is important too, especially you mommas out there! I know that sometimes I check myself and I’ll be like, why are you so stressed out? Besides being sleep deprived, why are you grumpy? And then I realize I haven’t had a date night in awhile or I haven’t even sat down and had lunch and now it’s 5pm!

Speaking up and letting your family know you need a break, you need a lunch date with a friend, you need to be recharged too benefits the whole family, not just you! Happy wife, happy life. Happy spouse happy house!

So who gets the attention in your house? How do you try to check in on others? How do you recharge you? Let me know in the comments below 🤗

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