Nobody is Perfect

Some of the motherhood blogs I love most have mothers that tell it like it is, and I'm going to try and do the same. Telling of all the good warm and fuzzy events is easy, but it is a challenge to tell of your faults, so that is what I'm challenging myself to do this morning.

I've been a stay at home mother for 3 years now, and I'm nowhere close to perfecting this most important job. I find myself getting irritated easily on those "bad days," sometimes a lot of times, I feel myself being lazy with my household duties (washing clothes, scrubbing floors, dusting, etc),

some nights I don't feel like fixing dinner! There are some days where I'm in a funk and I allow my children to watch movies all day long so I can find peace in my brain, so I can Be. Still. Sometimes I don't want to entertain my kids, I do think that I'm hard on my children sometimes, so am I a bad mother?

I'm the kind of person who also feels just horrible for all the above mentioned. I reevaluate, ponder, guilt, guilt some more, and really try to come up with a better plan for me to be a better mother.

However, the more I think about these things, I also think that some of the above is okay too.  Being a mother has taught me great patience, and according to my Mother I have much more than she did, I still feel like I have a low patience meter reading on some days. This is one thing I would love to improve upon. When I sit down and wonder why am I being so inpatient? The reason is completely selfish. Normally it is because I stayed up way to late the night before, I'm in one of those lazy mood days, I haven't gotten up and walked in the morning, the house is a mess, and my list of "to-dos" is just WAY to long! Is that my kids' fault? No. It is mine. This is where the guilt starts eating away at me. SNAP OUT OF IT AMBER! Get your rear in gear and get stuff done, then you can be less stressed and focus on playing, imagining, loving on your children all day long!

Much easier to say then do. Being a SAHM (stay at home mother) is also a monotonous job (this is why I hated working retail). Same jobs to be done day in and day out. Wash, dust, clean, tidy....wash, dust, clean, tidy...you get the picture. So. Some days I allow myself to let things slip. Everyone needs a break right? At the exact same time I'm finding reasons it is okay, I also know in the back of my head leaving work for today will make me grumpy tomorrow because I have more to do than I want. LOL....a vicious cycle, one I want to correct!

I love to cook dinner. I really do! There are nights that I just don't, and that is okay too. No one ever died from having a bowl of cereal for dinner. I refuse to feel bad about this, so I won't, I just wanted to tell it like it is on this one.

Entertaining my children. I do feel bad about this one. I often think I need to read more, play more, draw more, pretend more, with my kids. On the other hand however, I think it is a good thing that I don't do this with them all the time either. I believe it is important for children to use their imagination on their own. It is good for them to look at books and come up with their own story, but sometimes I don't do a very good job facilitating these things. Now, if I can do better on the above mentioned, I also believe I'll be a better mother in all areas.

Erma Bombeck on Motherhood:

I loved you enough to ask about where you were going, with whom and what time you would get home

I loved you enough to insist that you buy a bike, that we could afford to give you, but with your own money

I loved you enough to make you return a Milky-Way— with a bite out of it—to the drug store and to confess “I stole this."

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears in my eyes

I loved you enough to admit I was wrong and ask for your forgiveness

I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall and hurt

But most of all, I loved you enough to say NO when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all!

            Does anyone else out there feel this way or have felt this way? What were some things you did to correct yourself if you believed your actions needed to be corrected. Advice? I am a good person, I'm a loving person, I adore my children and am madly in love with my husband. I love staying at home and resisting the over played hustle and bustle that a lot of mothers fall victims to, in the end I love being at home and doing the monotonous work in lieu of being in the business world! I really do. I just thought I'd share some of my most inner thoughts with the world to help keep me accountable for what I would like to change about myself.