Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas
Hey friends! It's Koa and Sarah, the Cajun Mamas! Grab a cup of coffee and press play on our podcast! You may be familiar with our social media content, but now, we can have longer conversations. We are going to dive in to topics like life experiences, what it's like to be a mom these days, inspiration, encouragement and more. Thanks for subscribing!
Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas
Coffee Talk With The Cajun Mamas: Nurturing Hearts in a Busy World
Ever wonder what it really means to be a successful mom? Some might argue it's about keeping a spotless home or raising prodigious children, but we believe true success often lies in those small, meaningful moments that make up everyday life. Today, we discuss the complex notion of what it means to be a successful mother, reflecting on traditional values while navigating the realities of modern parenting.
https://cajunmamas.com/
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@CajunMamas
Sara
https://www.facebook.com/lllippylady
https://www.instagram.com/lllippylady/#
https://www.tiktok.com/@lllippylady
Koa
https://www.facebook.com/kgmelancon
https://www.tiktok.com/@koa.melancon
https://www.instagram.com/k_melancon/
Welcome to Coffee Talk with the Cajun Mamas. You have been with us for quite a while, or maybe this is your first episode and you are just tuning in.
Speaker 2:We are glad to have you. Thank you so much. If you're on our YouTube stream video, whatnot? Please leave us a comment and let us know where are you watching from? Oh I love that.
Speaker 1:I love to see where everybody's listening from.
Speaker 2:Me too, and make sure you tell all your friends about it.
Speaker 1:Tell all your friends.
Speaker 2:Because we have things to talk about.
Speaker 1:This is a good one.
Speaker 2:This is a good one. I feel like it's going to strike a nerve with people, maybe, or it's going to be relatable, it's going to be triggering, it's going to be I don't know all the things.
Speaker 1:I feel like people's gonna be like yes, yeah, yeah that's me. Yes, yes, um, we're gonna talk about what does it mean to us to be a, to be a successful mom, and we actually, yeah, we got this from a friend I don't a follower, a follower and she said I think maybe y'all should do an episode on that and I I was like you know what that's so good?
Speaker 2:Because it's going to be, like, very unique to each person. Like, what does it mean to be successful as a mother to you? So we're going to just dive into that a little bit, but first we are going to talk about how the Cajun lady accent. Hal is a friend of ours. She's also from Church Point, louisiana, like we are, and she has a whole line of cajun seasonings, dips, mixes like uh, spaghetti mixes, okay, chili mixes, like, if you want a real authentic taste of cajun food. And, and please go follow her on social media because she does all these cooking videos to go along with her seasonings and mixes and stuff. You just have to check how out y'all. Oh, yeah, she is a treat, she's a treat. And, uh, you can find her on all the social media platforms, y'all, even snapchat. This lady has facebook, snapchat, youtube, tiktok and instagram. Search how h-a-l. The cajun lady accent. Okay, and thank you, how for being our friend and our sponsor for February. Yes, thank you, hal.
Speaker 1:All right, being a successful mama. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:What does it even look like? This topic made me have to really think, because I feel like there are many days where I feel anything but successful.
Speaker 1:Oh listen, we are thick in party training right now. And my husband? He just walked into the bathroom the other day where I had the thing on the toilet and she was. I said I couldn't catch her, I didn't get it. I'm a failure. I'm a failure because I can't get hurt I felt like everything I had done that day was a complete and utter failure.
Speaker 2:I started crying and it's like it's hard you know, sometimes the feelings are so overwhelming, like we want in our mind. I mean in a perfect world. You know your kids wake up, you give them a kiss breakfast, you know off to school, or even on a weekend okay, playing outside or whatever. Come inside, like who lives like that in real life. It's not a show, it's not a tv, a movie, it's not. I always felt that reminds me specifically of bedtime routines. Okay, before you have kids, you think you see all these shows where they like kneeling next to the bed or they sitting in bed with their kids and they reading a book reading a book, a bedtime story, kiss the little one, good night, pull up the covers, good night, sweet dreams, and off to bed we go.
Speaker 2:My bedtime routine with my kids both my girls was anything but that, and I felt so cheated, let me tell you, I felt like my whole life had been a lie. I'm like this is not how it's supposed to be. These kids don't want to sleep, and if I read them a book, they just get wilder. You know, like just opposite of what you think, the perfect bedtime routine would look like. Just slowly.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're so peaceful. That has never happened. Never my kids start wiling out at bedtime. Let me just tell you they are absolutely. I don't know what happens.
Speaker 2:That wave of energy. Whenever, I say let's pray.
Speaker 1:It's like something triggers their bodies to wake up and run around the house and aggravate the crap out of it, adrenaline rush. I just don't know the prayers, so maybe being a successful mama in that instant is you getting them to bed.
Speaker 2:Without losing your SHIT.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you're just stepping out and breathing because that first breath whenever you everybody's laying down and you can just kind of sink into the mattress a rare feeling, a rare but peacefulest ever feeling that could be a success.
Speaker 2:I feel like success is a momentary like, like situational. Oh, it's so situational, it's so not like the overall picture, although there are a few things that came to my mind when I think of being like overall, being a successful mom, and I'm not going to say that right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's table that. Okay, Overall success, because I have things to say about that, okay, okay, that okay, overall success, because I have things to say about that, okay, okay, um so, but you know, those are the situational things. That could be getting them to bed, that could be getting a meal on the table, a home-cooked meal and having them eat it and actually like, like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is, but you see how many things are out of our control. So when it all goes our way, you like, you feel like I am the best mama. This is. I'm successful right now as a mama because I cooked a meal and they liked it and they ate it and nobody fussed nobody.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying I'm looking at you like this because I never have a day where I'm like I rocked.
Speaker 2:this day I didn't say day, I said moment. Okay, this is an interesting thought I had too. Like what? What did it look like in your mind? What do you think of when you think of a successful mom back in the day, like and I'm talking maybe our mamas, when I'm maybe beyond our mamas, like our mamas and stuff like what did our mamas do that made them like the epitome of, oh, my mama is the woman, she is a, she is the mama, she's the matriarch. You know, like it was a different time then, yes, and I'm not using that as an excuse for the world we live in now, but it was different. So what does successful mothering look like to you? Thinking in the past?
Speaker 1:um, you know people get upset about the fact that women didn't work. But I love being a home mama. I love taking care of my home. I love taking care of my children at home. I love taking care of my husband, you know, when he's out at work. I love that. So being a successful mama you know to me was you know like, and my grandma did it. She had nine kids. So like that is a success. You mothered all these children and I'm not saying it wasn't rough.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Surely not, Because let me tell you what it was. Not a walk in the park, okay, at all times with my mama and all those kids. But you raised up these children to be, you know, upstanding citizens and you grew a family in Jesus. What could be more successful than that To me? You know, yeah.
Speaker 2:And what do you feel like makes it so much harder to do that today? Like we are the exception. We work from home. Um, we are not out in the workforce like other, you know, have to be, some want to be, some don't want to be. They there because they have to be. But regardless like where we, I feel like we are more of the exception than the rule. So what do you think? Is it just like the economy? Or like the pressure? Like when did it become? Like? No, that's really not cool that my mom had to stay home?
Speaker 1:like you know what I mean oh, I don't know, this is touch touchy, yeah, so I did that, though, but we did that. You know, we worked in the workforce and we worked for our families and we went out to work.
Speaker 1:All over the country for me All over, yeah, you were all over Multiple states and I just I couldn't see myself doing that now. Um, now I did work right down the road, easy breezy, brought my kids to school with me, whatever, um, but you know, I just think that we want more stuff. We want more stuff because there's more.
Speaker 2:There's more stuff available yes, there's more stuff in our face are distracting us all the time. It makes it hard to be content with what you have and not want more you think, I think that, and and then the economy is a big, it's very hard to. How are you on income?
Speaker 1:it's very hard income with kids and you got to put food on the table. That's expensive as it is, you know you have to. You have to have two incomes and we are working on multiple, you know, because we have more than one job, you and I, we are still working from home. We still have to have those extra incomes to make it work. Yeah, so we just don't go out. We do actually Now. We do actually now.
Speaker 2:We do so uh by the way, if your local business would like to sponsor Cajun Mamas on the road, you can reach us at the Cajun Mamas. Uh, wait, what is it? The Cajun Mamas at gmailcom?
Speaker 1:yeah we'll set something up with you, uh. But yeah, I mean like we have to work multiple jobs and we have to have more than one income in this life. Yeah, you know, in this way of life, I think, what do you think? I mean, I wish I could just tell you, yeah you know I live off of one income.
Speaker 2:I mean unless your spouse, um, you know, makes enough for two. It's hard, um, but then you have people that you know they have what they need and they are happy and, like their, their kids are seen about and they eat, and you know they, they do things when they can and that's just the life that god has called them to.
Speaker 2:You know, and I love watching people be simple simple living right and I love that yeah, um, sometime we just think we need things you know and and but going back to like the past, what always comes to my mind as like she was a that was a good mama, a, a good wife, a good housekeeper, a good, just that was the woman. Okay, nathan always told me about his mama, virgie, and how like they had a dairy farm and they would do like they would do crops too, like soybeans and hay farming and all this stuff. They had a farm, okay, and all the workers, ms Virgie was cooking meals breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day, every day, sarah breakfast, lunch and dinner, and not just for her and her four kids and her husband, but for the dairy workers and the the farm workers too. And I'm like I can only cook one or two meals a week and she's cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and how many kids she had.
Speaker 1:Four, four kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that ain't no dang walking the park and then cooking that many times, yeah it's like that was a woman you hear me and made, sewed, made all the clothes, like, did every everything that you could do and not have to go buy something. You know they did all that and my mother-in-law has a little bit of that in her too. Like she makes soap, she sews, she will make, she made all the girls dresses when they were little and just that type of living is dying out. And I, me, as an almost 40 year old woman, I'm like I need to know how to sew, like I need to know how to make my own soap. What's going to happen when she's gone and I'm not going to know how to do nothing and my girls aren't going to know how to do nothing. So I'm like this is pressure you put on yourself, okay, but you know, let's take a second to talk about.
Speaker 2:Cajun.
Speaker 1:Harvest Country. Acadia Parish is Cajun Harvest Country. Yes, it is Okay. Let's take a second to talk about, uh, cajun harvest country. Acadia parish is cajun harvest country.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, let's do that first okay, so we are y'all in the thick of mardi gras season.
Speaker 2:It's a party over here in south louisiana let me tell you, to be alive in south louisiana time okay, if you have always been wanting to experience an authentic cajun style Gras, you need to head over to AcadiaTourismcom slash Mardi Gras to find the list of events going on this month. Like on February 15th, in rain, there's a Mardi Gras parade and an after party. February 22nd is the Carrere de Mardi Gras de Lens, that's Mermontal Cove, okay. And then March 2nd, right here in Church, church Point, the best of the best, if you ask me, uh, is our career.
Speaker 2:The Mardi Gras, the, the Mardi Gras run in Church Point, where you're going to see all the chicken chasings, the costumes, the food, the drinks, the fun, the music, all of it. Um, you can plan your whole visit to Acadia Parish by going to AcadiaTourismcom. Um, if you want specific mardi gras content, you put the slash mardi gras at the end. If you want to see all the things on their website, just acadiatourismcom, okay, you won't be sorry. Plan your visit to acadia parish today. All right, we're talking about the past and like that's what I think of as like a successful mama and but they didn't have all the distractions that we do now.
Speaker 1:Okay, they didn't. And so my, my general wonderment is we became very, a very anxious society. You know, um, I think maybe I might have started in the late 90s. Okay, I want to say people started becoming more distracted, distractions, distractions. We have social media as a distraction, we have TV as a distraction, yeah, you know. So that kind of takes you away from the present. Being able to cook a meal for all of the people who work for you.
Speaker 1:Or you know work with you, or you know like, don't you think like there wasn't that much stuff back then to be distracted with?
Speaker 2:That's part of it, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like that was your daily routine, like I would imagine waking up, making breakfast, going to the grocery store to get stuff to cook, because I mean I just don't see like how we make bulk trips, like we'll go to Sam's and we'll get bulk of everything, so we don't grocery shop every day. You think you?
Speaker 1:think she went to the grocery store. Every day I do. That sounds miserable.
Speaker 2:No, I absolutely do. I really feel like that generation would go to the store, if not every day, every other day, because think about, too, how small the refrigerators used to be and now we got big, grand refrigerators. I have two refrigerators in my house, I know, you know, and two freezers in my house. It's like we have how they got by with so little because they would replenish faster than us.
Speaker 1:I feel like you know what I mean. I'm horrified by that.
Speaker 2:But I mean you, that's also how they socialized, though, sarah, you think about it Like yeah, that's how they would. So they go to the grocery store, you know, or go to the salon, you know they they would get their hair done all the time.
Speaker 1:Um, it was just a different way of being.
Speaker 2:Oh, if I could just one day no, one day be cool like and and go and visit at this at their houses and stuff. Like, oh, I have to go to the store, I'm gonna pass by so-and-so's house on the way or on the way back or whatever, and that that was the visiting. That would go on like we like to. I'll take any excuse to go have coffee at your house. I'm like, oh yeah, I have to go to the pig, I'm going to stop by. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, except for back then they didn't have to worry about how many courses they had in the car, so like you could just pile them up.
Speaker 2:Pile them up, all your kids.
Speaker 1:No seatbelt, no, sit down, y'all just get in, we're gone. You know, uh, I don't know. So that was I don't know. I just think it was yeah a nice time. Yeah, very nice as I look off into the distance and I know, wonder and wonder so we have to remember to you know we're talking about.
Speaker 2:How success can be is very situational oh yeah, it's not just saying like overall I'm a great mom, like I hope we can feel that, but at the same time being realistic, we feel like failures often and wish we would do things differently or that the situations were different. That's just life. But we have to remember to celebrate the small wins, like for you right now, potty training, like when she makes it to the potty baby. We do the potty dance and we celebrate.
Speaker 1:She pees in the potty.
Speaker 2:It's a party so that those moments make it, make it make you feel successful you know, know, make mothering feel just joyful.
Speaker 1:You know, Like you said when everybody eats what you cooked or you cooked or you just got to cook a meal, you put a lasagna in the oven. How wonderful a lasagna you popped, and that's not even a fresh one. I don't even care, if it's stofas, don't matter, put that in the oven and that's a oven and that's a win.
Speaker 2:The other day we passed the frozen foods and my one of my girls was like they have macaroni and cheese in the oven and I was like, oh, I came so close to grabbing that like I shoulda, because what a meal. Just like a big plate of mac and cheese and bacon.
Speaker 1:Put some little chicken bacon or something yeah, you would have dressed it up real nice. I'll bet you would have dressed it up real nice. I'll bet, yeah, you would have dressed it up real nice.
Speaker 2:I don't know I mean. It looked good enough on its own honestly.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean the small things. You know. You fed your kids Sometimes. It's just like sometimes you got to sit down and just make sure they are right during the day, yeah. And seen about. All right, let's take a second to talk about 87 Washes and we're going to visit that earlier thing that we talked about.
Speaker 2:Yes, Okay, 87 Washes mobile detailing. Why is it 87? Exit 87. Exit 87 off of I-10 in Rain, Louisiana. That's where they from, Jorge and his wife Ashley Y'all they met as missionaries in South America. How, how just God led is that relationship? You know they love to serve their community and make others day brighter. And I know when you get your car spick and span clean, when you have a clean car, you just feel better about yourself.
Speaker 1:You is sassy, your sunglasses are on, you're like my car smells good and it doesn't smell like feet, yeah, like and no crumbs anywhere like what a great feeling.
Speaker 2:So they not just bringing clean cars to the world, they bring in that good feeling they are to the world bringing a successful mama, yeah, that day you rocking, you feel successful.
Speaker 1:Whenever jorge came and cleaned my vehicle, I'm gonna tell you right now we, we riding, because, like it's been clean ever since I've been keeping up with it now you've been doing a great job, so, um, it makes me feel good to sit in a vehicle that that smells good. He put me even a little, um, a little, air freshener. Yes, that says 87 washes with the phone number, so I know where to go get in touch with them again.
Speaker 2:Yes, y'all, if you are in this area, please give them, uh, your attention. Please give them your, your support. They are a small, family-owned business. You can look them up at 87washesmobildetailingcom or find them on Facebook, instagram, all the socials. Just search 87washes and thank y'all for being a sponsor.
Speaker 1:Thank y'all very much. All right, now let's talk about how do you know, as a parent, that overall you are growing up a good child. What are some things that your kids do that you notice? I did something right.
Speaker 2:I must be doing something right when they immediately like, if there's a problem or an issue or something, when they immediately say let's pray, let's, let's say a prayer, or we need to pray for that person or whatever, and we were just talking about that with. Jojo. Um, that right there I'm like, yes, cause you are teaching them the like spiritual warfare, like that goes on, and that is their first line of defense is prayer and that's what really can change things. So that right there teaching them to pray, that's huge in my book.
Speaker 1:So a little background on what we're talking about. There was something that was going on. Somebody was picking on one of our girls and JoJo said you know what we're going to tell them? We're going to pray for you. And it was like that was her that is her comeback?
Speaker 2:her trash talk. Was we gonna pray for you?
Speaker 1:we're gonna pray for you you know, like that was just so innocent. But then also you're like profound yeah we, we, uh, we doing, we doing something right you know that's a successful feeling as a mama. Now, my daughter, one of my, the oldest one, isla she. The other day we were at the dollar store and something so simple she opened the door for somebody to come out.
Speaker 1:And I was like yeah, I walked right in that door. I never opened the door for the person coming out Right, but we walked in and she stayed and held the door open. I love it. That is a success.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That made me feel happy, even though my little janky self didn't keep the door open, I know.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's like if you see your kids being a little more like praying a little more than you or like very faithful. That is, yes, I will humble you. And that's like, oh, okay, I need to get myself in check, yeah. Or like the other day, bren was like mama, I haven't seen you read your devotional and in a few days. And I'm like, okay, yeah, you're right, I haven't and I need to do that we can learn a lot from our kids.
Speaker 2:They see it all. Yeah, they don't say sometimes but they see it and they know, they notice and that's like a. It makes you realize that, like you're, that's a constant in her mind. And if mama's not, if she don't wake up in the morning and see mama doing that and she doesn't always like sometimes I finish it before she gets up or whatever, but like she realized, haven't seen that in a while, but anyway that's a constant for them and like, what a great. That's the kind of things you want them to be built up on and grow up seeing and yeah, because you hope one day they'll.
Speaker 2:You're a model for them. They'll turn that into habits and they'll do. That leads me into what I feel like overall being a successful mom in my eyes, and this is is knowing that your kids have faith in Jesus and God and a relationship with him and a devotion and like, at the end of the day, you did everything you could to ensure that they go to heaven. You know, and that's go to heaven. You know, and that's the ultimate success is just knowing you did everything you could, because you know, when they get to be a certain age, you don't have you really don't have control anymore, and that's a hard thing for us to think of. You know, but at the same time you have to know you did everything that you could.
Speaker 1:I just that that that is that's the ultimate, that's. The ultimate success is if you can, if you can instill in your children, um, just where to go, you know where to go, uh, if you're feeling a certain way.
Speaker 2:How to deal with life situations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that only God can help you with, you know, and God will set you on the path to righteousness. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting, I know.
Speaker 2:It's very, I mean. I feel like we just scratching the surface of how deep that really is, but I can't fathom.
Speaker 1:We're becoming very speechless in this.
Speaker 2:Because it's humbling we're having some speechless moments here because we're like oh, Because it's humbling when you think about it and makes you wonder am I doing enough? Am I doing everything that I can?
Speaker 1:Because most of the time I'm like, you know, like negative things. You focus on the negative. You know, you're like, oh well, I didn't get this done and I didn't get this done and I didn't, but what did you do, you know? Did you? You know, wake up this morning with a smile and greet your children and I fall short. I'm like sometimes they'll just be passing me and I'm like, good morning.
Speaker 1:You know good morning, I see you, you know Right. Just, I don't know. Being a successful mom is hard to think every day and every situation that you being successful. But I think it is situational and then when you see your kids do something, uh run to jesus first um we need to do this, we need to pray for somebody. I know that this person is sick, so let's pray for them, you know um, we're just life skills.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, life skills. Yeah, yeah, yeah, then that's, that's little moments of success. Yeah, okay, y'all. Mardi Gras season let's just talk about that real quick. Mardi Gras season is upon us, and if you never experienced a true Cajun Mardi Gras, you can, if you decide to make a trip and come to Acadia Parish. There's plenty to do and see this time of year.
Speaker 1:And there's plenty to do and see this time of year, and there's plenty for your kids to do too, because there's plenty of children's runs too.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's something that takes place in Acadia Parish, in our town church point yeah, so our big Mardi Gras is March the 2nd, but on March 1st, the day before, we have a children's career. So the kids get to dress up in costumes and chase the chickens too, and it's so stinking cute y'all and it's so well organized, don't you find like?
Speaker 2:they yeah you know that this age goes to this flag and yeah, they put them in age groups and kind of keep everything organized so nobody gets hurt and it's it's a great time and it's very family friendly. Um, you know, for that particular parade on the flows there's no alcohol allowed it and it's very family-friendly. For that particular parade on the flows there's no alcohol allowed.
Speaker 2:It's very family-oriented. So that would be March 1st and then March 2nd in Church Point. You can check out the Rain Mardi Gras Parade on February 15th, and then February 22nd is the career in Mermontaw Cove. So if you want all these details, head on over to AcadiaTourismcom. Slash Mardi Gras. Thank y'all for being a sponsor for the Cajun Mamas podcast.
Speaker 1:That's another successful parenting moment is bringing your culture to your kids. Culture, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's thick, thick with culture down here. It's thick From the food to the Mardi Gras, to the way we speak and the music, all the music you know, yeah, oh yeah, and all them little babies love to ding-a-ding to that Cajun music, it's true.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I mean, and also, if you're listening right now and you have a topic that you would like to hear us, that would like I said earlier, we got this topic from um, from one of our listeners, one of our friends. Um, if you have a topic that you'd like us to to weigh in on, I like that idea. Y'all let us know in the comments of uh, wherever you're listening, we'd like to hear. We're always open to new ideas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. This was a great topic and I hope that it just resonated with someone out there that can see themselves in these conversations that we have. And it's like you know, I'm not alone. I feel like a failure too sometimes, or some days are great and I feel like a success, and I need to acknowledge that and validate myself a little bit more. So, we feel you, we understand, we're here for you, give yourself some grace, Grace upon grace upon grace.
Speaker 2:So let's wrap it up by mentioning Howe Cajun Lady Accent. Go to HoweTheCajunLadyaccentcom and you're going to see all the products that Hal has to offer. She got some delicious all-purpose Cajun seasonings fish fry, seafood bowl, the dip mixes.
Speaker 1:The dips are my favorite. We love the dips, the Cajun Firecracker mix, if you have any, especially for the Mardi. Gras, she has a Mardi gras um dip she does mix. So, um, like parties that you go to, I always go straight to that because it's so easy to make and it's a crowd pleaser. Yeah, if I bring a how dip like you, will see everybody at it it's no big and and and crackers too even if I make some fire crackers.
Speaker 2:Those crackers, yeah. And she said, you could put that on Chex Mix too. The cracker seasoning, or pretzels, yeah, let's get creative with our house. I'm so hungry right now, I know.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Her seasonings are low in sodium and MSG free.
Speaker 2:Yes, go to howthecajunladyaccentcom and get yourself some. And follow her on all the social media platforms. Just search how the Cajun lady accent. What a great episode. I enjoyed this.
Speaker 1:Thank y'all for visiting with us today, um, and we'll see y'all again soon. Yep, see y'all next time.