On Being A Mom…

Some days I am totally on as a mom and score big in the mom category. Last Friday was a prime example. We had been invited to a St Patty’s party but then at the last minute it got cancelled because the family that was hosting got sick. We were all caught up on school and the kids were super bummed because they had been anticipating going all week. The weather outside wasn’t real great, it was super windy and cool. And so I quickly came up with making a huge fort in the play room and camping out and having lunch up there.

The kids loved it. I moved the table, added extensions to it, used chairs and gymnastics mats, pulled out blankets and sheets and used heavy medical textbooks to keep everything in place. I finished and they all climbed in and grabbed books and thought it was awesome.

I then headed downstairs while they were all happy and made a green lunch. We had made jello cups for the party so I combined that with some mac and cheese that I made green. They all thought lunch was the greatest.

So that was awesome. But the reality is that most times I’m not that mom, and I think probably most aren’t either. We tend to shine and show our wins and the times that we are really nailing this mom thing, and shy away from showing the usual day to day frustrations, crankiness, and blah day to day. And because we tend to hide the more mundane and not exciting and times that we are messing up far more than we are winning at this motherhood thing I think many of us start to feel like we don’t do a good job or aren’t being a good mom. I know I do a lot.

I think social media is thought to connect people but I wonder how much it actually isolates us more. We “talk” with people or “message” people, but living the daily in and out and good and “cleaning-up-the-second-poop-accident-of-the-day-after-the-toddler-slid-down-the-stairs-with-her-messy-pants-in-her-hands-spreading-poop-from-her-bum–all-over-the-carpeted-stairs” bad or the just plain “I’m-just-tired-and-cranky-today” kind of days. And maybe I’m the only mom who has days like that, but I think there are far more out there and I wish we would all do a better job of putting our silly smiles away and have more actual conversations with real people that we see and interact with and less online (while I think relationships online can be super supportive and great, we all need to work on building relationships with people that we actually see).

I think people often think because I have 5 kids, work, homeschool, run that I have it all together. I don’t and I never will and most days I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants feeling like I’m messing everything up along the way. I may have a few wins but I have far more mess ups, which really I think is just life and not necessarily bad but just reality.