Less Than Perfect Is The New Perfect

Before I had children I had such visions of the type of mother I would be one day. I had it all drawn up in my head and tied up so neatly with a pretty little ribbon.  I would be THIS kind of mother but not THAT kind of mother. I would do THIS with my children but I would never do THAT with my children. I would be perfect and my children would be perfect too.

You can stop laughing now. I finally did. You see it’s easy to say you will be a certain type of mother before you actually are one. It’s easy to have all the ideas in the world about how your days will unfold, how your children will be neatly dressed like a page out of the latest J. Crew catalog, how your house will resemble the cover of Pottery Barn, how you and your family will enjoy calm breakfasts while the perfect looking dog lies quietly on the floor. Then you actually have children and you realize that is never going to happen.  You're just happy if your kids clothes don't have stains, and your coffee is lukewarm.

You see the problem with creating such a detailed image before you face the reality is that the letdown can feel huge. By letdown I do not mean my children, I mean me. I had created an idea in my head of me being a perfect mother.  I would be a mother who never loses her cool, is always showered, dressed and sporting a little bit of makeup, a mother who spends every moment of her day enriching the lives of her children.  In my fantasy the laundry was always done and put away, the house was always clean, and the food shopping was always done way before anyone had time to notice the milk had become questionable.  My children always ate perfectly prepared balanced meals. We spent time throughout the day reading, building, playing, baking and dancing.  I know my fantasy was quite elaborate.

Quite a few years into this whole motherhood thing I found myself going to bed disappointed in my performance more often than I care to admit. I started feeling constant pressure about why the house was a disaster more often than not, why I allowed my children to watch more TV that particular day than I swore I would, why I burned the dinner, why I was still pulling clean clothes out of the laundry basket instead of putting it all away and why this was nothing like I had pictured. Where was my Pottery Barn house? Where were my J.Crew kids? Where oh where was my perfect dog? Why wasn't I showered?! Then it hit me. All of those images were in my head. They weren’t part of my reality and if we’re being honest I don’t think they are part of many people’s reality.



Want a perfect picture? This is the reality.

Unfortunately what is part of our reality is putting way too much pressure on ourselves as mothers to be perfect, when the truth is our children are better off that we are not.  We are always teaching our children that they don’t have to be perfect they just have to try to do their best. We teach our boys to put forth their best effort and we will always be proud of them. Perfection is just not attainable, not for them and certainly not for us. I sat down the other day after the boys had gone to bed and I had that overwhelming feeling of disappointment in me come through again. It had been one of those days when you aren’t even really sure what you accomplished. The laundry sat unfolded, the vacuum never got turned on and the craft project I had promised the boys we would do never got touched. I had yelled at both of them for fighting with each other amongst other things. I felt like a giant failure. Motherhood may be one of the only jobs that you aren’t supposed to admit you failed at that particular day. Everyone has a bad day at work every now and again but motherhood comes with so much more pressure. After all doesn’t every little thing we do in a day affect our children?  It turns out it doesn’t.  That’s right you heard it here first. Our children are not in fact affected by every little thing we do. Our children have the amazing ability to look at the big picture and see it for what it is. It’s not perfect but it’s life. It’s not always pretty and it certainly doesn’t come wrapped up in a beautiful ribbon but when you take the time to breathe you realize you are doing all right. They are doing all right. When you take the pressure off of yourself to be perfect the light shines through and makes it all clear again.

That night after I stopped beating myself up for our less than perfect day I went in and checked on each of the boys. I kissed the two year old and tucked him back in as he slept ever so soundly. I then went in to my five year old, kissed him on the forehead and whispered I love you buddy. He rolled over and said Mommy I love you more.  As I closed his door I took a deep breath and made myself a promise that the next morning I would live in the moment, that I wouldn’t stress about the whole check list, that I would be with my boys in the present and that is something to wrap a ribbon around.

 

A Farewell to Summer

Summer is coming to an end. It’s getting darker earlier. The air has changed. The “end of summer” bugs are out. It’s an obvious shift.  My kid go back to school next week and while part of me is jumping for joy inside and out the other part of me is desperately trying to hold onto these last days of summer with them.

I’ve spent a little over two months with my kids at this point. To be clear I have spent 7 days a week, 24 hours a day (minus the 8 hours they sleep if I’m lucky) and countless minutes and seconds with my sweet, adorable (sense my sarcasm) boys this summer. The other day I couldn’t help but think to myself “Okay toughen up pansy. You only have two weeks left. YOU CAN DO THIS!” If I’m being honest, which I am, my kids are pretty awesome but they are also pretty annoying. Between all the bickering amongst each other and the constant whining and begging for snacks a mom can only stay calm and normal for so long. That being said summer with kids is like that guy you loved to hate.  You know it’s not going to be easy but you love it just the same.

Now that the end is near I am having mixed emotions about it actually ending.  It dawned on me the other day as I repeated myself for the 5^th time that it was time for us to leave the beach, that this is the last summer they will be this age. I know every summer is the last summer my kids will be “this age” but it really hit me this time. Next summer I will no longer have a six year old who starts the summer off just ending kindergarten and ends the summer confident and ready to enter into the first grade. Next summer I will no longer have a three year old who just ended his first year in preschool and is eager to begin his second year in the “big classroom”.  I will have two boys a year older, a year wiser and a whole year changed from who they are this year.  It hit me that summer is like childhood, ever fleeting.  This has been a great summer. A summer filled with memories with family and friends. It’s been a summer filled with beginnings and endings and I think it’s only appropriate to say farewell.

A Farewell to summer,

It’s so hard to say goodbye to a season I love so much. It’s hard to say goodbye to the smell of barbeque grills from near and far. It’s hard to explain how much I will miss the sounds of kids riding bikes, catching fireflies, making S’mores and running through the neighborhood yards. I will miss the lack of a schedule. I will miss sitting down with my kids for a relaxed breakfast that consisted of them throwing food, me telling them to stop and all of us somehow laughing despite the chaos. I will miss the days we spend down at our lake. I will miss the 5,006 times they asked me for a snack and the 4,998 times I actually said no.

I will miss the times they were able to spend with their cousins swimming and laughing because I know how much I loved that time as a kid.

 

I will miss not having to worry about bedtime but instead allowing them to catch just one more fish, or make just one more S’more, or catch just one more firefly.

I will miss it all. So I say goodbye to one of my favorite seasons. I say goodbye to summer. Next year I will once again greet you with open arms. I will have two boys who are a year older than they are now and I know we will make great memories like we did this year. I’m never ready to let you go but I am always ready to see what you have in store for me next year.

I’m not dumb enough to think that all ideas of joy should be based on summer but I am smart enough to know that every idea of summer should be based on joy.

 

This Is Motherhood

Before I became a mother there were things about motherhood I knew everything about (try to control your laughter) and there were things about motherhood I knew nothing about. I picked up all the books my friends who were new mothers suggested and suddenly I knew EVERYTHING there was to know about motherhood. After all I had read every single book there was to read on the subject of motherhood and I had a dog so clearly I was an expert. I had been preparing for motherhood for as long as I could remember and I was beyond ready. I have always been a firm believer that you don’t just jump into the water before finding out everything there is to know about said water. (I’m really fun I swear.) So it was my belief that in order to become a mother I should learn everything possible about babies and children beforehand.  So I did just that. I didn’t just read books. I asked question after question to all my friends who were already mothers.

I found out everything I should be eating and not eating. I found out the best ways to make sure my baby would sleep through the night. I bought the best products that were going to help my baby stay happy and engaged throughout the day.  I was ready…for a baby right?  The funny thing is throughout all the books I read and questions I asked I never once thought to ask the most important question: What is the one thing about Motherhood no one told you? I wish I had asked that because in my opinion you can prepare for labor and for all things baby like diapering, feeding, rocking, and swaddling but nothing prepares you for motherhood.  Bringing home a baby is just the beginning of a long journey. Some of it is beautiful and amazing and some of it is hard and lonely. Here are some things I wish I had known about motherhood:

1.     Motherhood is beautiful and terrifying all at once.

 

2.     You won’t always be happy as a mother.

3.     You will always love your child/children but there will be times you don’t like them and that is completely normal.

4.     There will be times you will want to cry in the corner.

5.     There will be times you do cry in the corner.

6.     You will learn you are so much stronger than you thought.

7.     The first time you hear your child laugh you will find a part of your heart that you didn’t realize existed and it will make you smile a smile you didn’t know was possible.

 

8.     You will doubt yourself.

9.     You will at some point sound like your mother and it will make you both cringe and giggle.

10.   You will share information with your friends that you never would have thought was appropriate before kids, things like “OMG I haven’t pooped in at least four days!”, and “Why are my nipples so sore this kid doesn’t even have teeth yet?”, and “I’m seriously telling my husband the Dr. said 4 more weeks.” They will laugh with you, cry with you, and understand you in ways that only a mother can.

11.     You will do anything for sleep. For example a person who may have said she would never rock her child in a glider all night just to get some shut eye will do just that. Hell I would have swung on a swing at 3am by myself in a park to get my first born to sleep for longer than 1 hour at a time. Seriously!

12.      You will learn as you go and that is just fine. Your kids will somehow think you know what you’re doing, until they’re teenagers of course and then you are suddenly the biggest idiot on the planet.

13.      You will feel judged by others.

14.       You will judge others.

15.      You will empathize with other mothers in public. You are now part of the club and sticking together is how we survive.

16.      You will sit and stare at a wall while your child naps because you haven’t had a moment to yourself in who knows how long.

17.       You will look forward to going to the dentist.

18.     You will feel protective in a way you never thought possible. Hey there mama bear.

19.   You will love your spouse in a different way than you did before you had children. 

 

20.     You will learn to let some things go.

21.     You will sometimes miss who you once were.

 

22.    You will learn from your children.

 

23.   You will experience love that is all encompassing, beautiful, terrifying, and endless.

24.                        There will be good days.

 

25.                        There will be bad days.

 

26.                        There will be excellent days

27.                        There will be horrible days.

28.       You will come out of each day tired but strong.

29.      You are more prepared for this gig than you give yourself credit for.

30.      You are not perfect but neither is the mother next to you or the one next to her. It is our one commonality.

Motherhood comes with pressure. It comes with pressure from the people around us but most of the pressure we feel comes from ourselves. I think motherhood is something to tackle day by day. I read so many books it was as if I thought I could prepare for the entire journey before I even had a child. What I’ve learned along the way is that there is no book that can prepare you for the love you will feel and the doubt and disappointments you will experience on this journey.

 At the end of the day we all want to raise our children to be successful and caring adults. Instead of worrying so much about that though I think we need to stay focused on the here and now. If our children go to bed feeling loved we are doing our job. The days aren’t all going to be perfect but that’s life. Motherhood isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. It’s filled with storms and clouds. It’s because of those storms that we are able to appreciate the rainbows.