If I fall asleep during this post, I guess it won’t get published like I had hoped, because I wanted to share what is on my heart this morning.
It is 9:05 a.m. and I can barely keep my eyes open.
By all mom standards, it is one of those days.
I am listening for my washer to stop, keeping one ear open for my flu sick tween, and have a loosely made tentative ‘plan’ for my Tuesday that includes making phone calls and other miscellaneous errands.
I am also so grateful to be almost 30 weeks along with our 3rd boy, but I don’t sleep anymore. We are at that point.
Last night, our oldest boy began throwing up at around 3 a.m.
………..Not that I had fallen into REM sleep by then, but it was feeling pretty great to lay down in between trips to the bathroom.
The struggle is real to get my off-centered, gravity-challenged behind out of bed, due to SPD (which is always worse at night)
…..but when I heard the pitiful sounds of someone small in my house getting sick, instinct told me that is exactly where I needed to be.
We have been up and down a half-dozen times since the first round at 3 o’clock, and by 7 it was time to get our 2nd boy fed, dressed and happily on the bus to Kindergarten.
Needless to say, this Tuesday is not unlike many of your very own Tuesday mornings.
I have a news feed full of tired mommy friends who are also dealing with sleepless nights for one reason or another due to sicknesses, illnesses, diseases, and other random sleep-stealing culprits.
I don’t do this mommy thing any better than any one of my friends.
Some of them work outside of the home, some own their own home-based businesses, some work from home, others don’t work according to the typically accepted definition of ‘working’ – but I think we all do our own thing, with our own children, within the confines of our own family dynamics and we do our best.
Admittedly, I enjoy reading an occasional witty, crude humored blog post from one of the ever so popular mommy bloggers who so eloquently use their sarcasm and what they call ‘realism’ (which to me translates to negativity most of the time)
to describe many of the scenarios that I described above to help other moms not feel like they have to paint pictures of mommyhood with “butterflies and roses” all of the time,
and encourage women to opt to be more ‘real’ about the ups and downs of being a mom…..
Well, I am all for ‘real’ okay.
But I am also for staying positive and grateful, and nice.
We can’t cultivate a healthy type of thinking or mindset by saturating our news feed with cynical but popular (and funny) mommy blog posts all of the time
…………..or by joining Facebook groups of that are swarming with adultsize, judgmental mean girls.
Here’s what I am feeling like I see way too much of:
**Moms maliciously critiquing other moms for the most ridiculous (none of their business) things.
(Such as: cloth diapering vs. disposable, daycare vs. other, breastfed vs. bottle fed, binky or no binky, co-sleeping or not, attachment parenting or something else, working outside of the home or staying at home, natural birth vs anything else, adoption vs. fostering………etc. etc. etc.)
**Viral blog posts about motherhood that are funny, but always so negative.
That type of mind-set is certainly not what fuels me, doesn’t help me push through a hard day and is not ‘realistic’ to me.
I am not saying that sheets that have been pottied on or bathroom floors that have remnants of 3 am puke on them are in any way, beautiful.
Or that gaining knowledge, info, advice or wisdom from other (nice) mommies is a crappy thing.
Here’s what I think is ‘real’.
We are moms. Quit complaining. It isn’t always pretty. Things don’t always go as planned, We don’t always look pretty and we don’t need to.
Not all days are what many would consider ‘fun’ but that isn’t what it’s all about in the end anyway.
It is about creating a life with these people who look to you for that love – that love that they somehow know you have to offer unconditionally.
It is an important part of who they have become, and who they will blossom into as young adults. So, in all seriousness everything that we do, whether we are feeling recognized or appreciated at the time, matters a whole helluva lot.
Motherhood is always changing— but what never changes….is that we, women, were created especially for this mommy role; and that is beautiful all of the time.
We have the ability to keep pushing on despite unforeseen circumstances, being completely exhausted, being in pain, running on fumes with two-day old greasy hair and no recent sleep that qualifies or that falls into the category of anything considered decent.
We are capable of so much and have so much love to pour out with no questions asked.
While we should definitely maintain our sense of humor about the less ‘beautiful’ side to the ‘joys’ of motherhood, rolling with the punches…
it is SO important to keep a healthy and positive perspective.
It IS a beautiful thing to be gifted the responsibilities that we have taken on in the form of being a mother, and a wife.
To my mommy friends out there please remember that what you are doing is so important.
We don’t always have to have everything together, everything clean, everything washed, ironed, organized, folded or put in its place…and not all mommy opinions spewed to us by other mom’s are one’s that we are obligated to share in, or one’s that we should take to heart.
We just need to remember how important we are to our individual family unit.
Keep in mind that I am not writing to shove my views or ‘advice’ down your throat or to make you feel guilty if you don’t smile while you steam mop your kitchen.
I am not some mythical domestic mommy goddess….
I just wanted to remind all of my mommy friends how awesome, important and capable they are.
So when you look into the mirror, don’t define the kind of mommy that you see by any other standard than what God sets and the one that you were made for. YOUR own family.