You have heard it all before. Motherhood is hard.
Motherhood is unpredictable. You may not ever really feel like you know what
you’re doing. While all of these things are true there is a lot of joy, wisdom,
and knowledge that come along with being a mother.
I have to admit however that I haven’t always found
the joy, wisdom or knowledge I was hoping to have. There have been many days that have been filled
with frustration and doubt. There have been days that I have wanted bedtime to
arrive sooner rather than later. There have been days that I have cried on the
phone to my husband while he is at work. There have been days I yelled more than I would have liked. Those have not been my proudest
moments as a mother. I finally figured
out that there were some things I needed to change.
Redefining the idea of the perfect day.
I needed to realize that the days are
never going to be “magazine or Pinterest perfect”. The kids are not always going
to have on clothes that match or are stain free for that matter. We are not
going to be able to do the perfect craft once a week to hang on our fridge for
all our relatives to see. We are not always going to eat perfectly prepared
organic meals and that is okay. Sometimes the perfect day is going to be spent
inside in our pajamas. We are going to eat pretzels and cookies and watch way
too much television. We are going to throw caution to the wind and feel a sense
of freedom.
Ignoring the noise.
I spent way too much time telling my
kids to quiet down. “Stop screaming.” “Why are you guys so loud today? “ I got
sick of hearing my own voice telling them to quiet down. I finally realized
kids are loud. Everything they do is loud. Moving from the kitchen to the
living room? Loud. Talking to each other while right next to one another? Loud.
Talking to each other while in separate bathrooms? Ridiculously loud. I finally embraced the volume level around here.
Allowing them to feel proud even if it’s not perfect.
At the end of every day we tell our kids
to clean up all the toys they were playing with before bed. Often times that
means they have to clean up the equivalent of a small toy store that only sells
super small pieces. I have specific bins for all the toys. For some reason I
expected a six year old and a three year old to always put things away in the
correct bins. I found myself saying “Okay good enough” and then reorganizing
everything after they were in bed. Why? Why on earth did I feel the need to do
that? I realized one day that they were trying really hard. I realized that
they were in fact putting away all the toys and they were proud that the floor
was no longer a mine field of Legos. Instead of “good enough” I started saying “great
job boys” and they started trying even harder. Lesson learned.
Allowing them to make mistakes.
It’s so hard sometimes to not intervene
in every little thing my kids are doing. When our six year old was learning to
ride a two wheeler for the first time I was constantly saying “Oh watch out!” “Try
leaning more to your left. YOUR OTHER LEFT!” He got off his bike one day and
said he was giving up. After giving him the whole when you don’t succeed at
something right away that doesn’t mean you give it up speech I realized I
needed to back off a little. I didn’t bring up the bike for two weeks. Then one
day we were all outside and he went into the garage on his own and got out his
bike. I stood on the other side of our yard biting my tongue and allowed him to
lean the wrong way and ride directly into our shed one too many times. After
about twenty minutes he got the hang of it and the smile on his face was worth
the bite marks on my tongue.
Slowing down.
Our days are so busy. Between
rushing around from one place to the next I often find myself saying “I can’t
wait for this day to be over.” One day my six year old chimed in with a “Me
either!” Wait just one second. A six year old should never want the day to be
over before it’s even begun. I realized my stress was rubbing off on them. My constant
worry about rushing off to the next place or checking off the next thing on the
list of things to get done was stressing out my kids. I decided to make a constant
effort to try not to feel so rushed. The email sitting in my inbox can wait. I
don’t have to make it to every single PTA meeting. Target will still be open
tomorrow. I decided to slow down. I
decided the extra hour of us running around outside was going to trump the
homemade lasagna I was going to make. I decided grilled cheese and apple slices
were going to have to do. I decided to be here instead of at the next place and
I’m so happy I did.
Don’t get me wrong our days can
still be chaotic and full of stress. I don’t always know what the day is going
to bring, but one thing I do know is that doing these things has made me a
better mother.
Excellent post! Having reasonable / healthy expectations is a good thing :)
ReplyDeleteThe noise - it's incredible, isn't it? I told the girls to be quiet one particularly loud day. Marie's eyes narrowed and she said, "so you mean, don't have fun, right?" I realized I was noisy as a kid too. Hell, I'm probably noisy as a grownup.
ReplyDeleteAll this awareness you have, all this thought you give motherhood? It makes you a gem. And your kids have planted in them the makings of stellar parents, too.
Not perfect. Stellar. And that's worlds better, anyway.
You lost me with "ignoring the noise." Do you know there is a *direct* link between quieter children and smarter children? Clearly, the problem was that you were engaging in a form of insanity: doing exactly the same thing (telling them to quiet down), and expecting a different result beyond them temporarily shushing only to ramp it back up.
ReplyDeleteTeaching children the difference between playfully loud and "the neighbors two blocks away have driven over to complain" is *important*. You see...taking note of how your vocal amplitude affects others is one of the earliest - and easiest - ways you can teach your precious little snowflakes that they are not in fact the center of the universe. And *everyone* REALLY needs to learn that.