I love reading "Mommy" blogs. I peruse the articles reading about the struggles of juggling six kids and a dog or "The Mommy Wars", that still don't make any sense to me. Often the blogs make me feel like I am not crazy but at the same time manage to make me feel strangely inadequate. As the holidays approach and the internet is peppered with pictures of perfect holiday tables, holiday cookies that border on being art, themed Christmas trees, and women that have managed to do all this and escape with both their outfits and their hair intact, I find that this feeling intensifies. You see, I am most certainly NOT that mother. I love my kids with a passion that still makes me weak in the knees but that love has yet to lead me to juggle the competing priorities of motherhood with any sort of particular skill.
I am both a full-time teacher and a mother. "Oh I don't know how you manage" some of the other mothers say, and the reality is that I don't always manage. My children have eaten more than one meal on foam plates in the back of the car with juice boxes balanced carefully on their laps. I am guilty of handing them over to the television set when I can't take anymore and yelling when the situation doesn't call for it. My house is a mess, all 800 sq feet of it. On multiple occasions I have sounded the alarm for assistance from my own mother when the mess felt like it may swallow all of us whole. I have cried myself to sleep because I have no idea how to make the time stretch to get it all done. I felt like a rock star when I remembered all the dress up days for spirit week and a failure when I had to tell my 7 year old that I could not make it to American Education week. In the midst of my personal and very internal emotional roller coaster, my children are thriving.
I am a devoted Christian that has spent the majority of my life perpetually broken. My first marriage failed but I can't find it in myself to regret the marriage because it blessed me with my children. I have been blessed to provide my children with a loving step-father. He is my best friend and my rock. He knows how to make me laugh when I want to scream. I thank God for his love because it is in his arms that I have wrestled the pain of watching my kids drive away when I should be packing them up to go to my grandmother's for Christmas dinner. We have figured out how to balance each other while the world falls in around our ears. I know the angst of pulling my child's fingers loose and handing them over when they are screaming for me to stay simply because a piece of paper says I have to do so. I also know the utter euphoria that comes from bringing them home again each week and ability to truly glory in each moment we have.
My kids and I have grown up together. I was only 22 when I had my daughter. It does not sound terribly young but I have lived six lifetimes in between 22 and 32. My children fill me with amazing joy (and admittedly anxiety) and everything I do is for the good of my family. They may have to find my keys for me in the mornings or make sure that I remember to make a grocery list because my head is in the clouds. Once or twice their socks have not matched on school day and I am more likely to be found in sweat shirts than in sweater sets. Life has been messy and at times I have grieved for the mess. I have mourned the loss of the perfect mother that never existed. At 32 years old, after countless hours of suffering and even more hours of immeasurable joy, I have learned that there is beauty in the mess. In all honesty, I have embraced the mess because it has shaped my family into the beautifully unique unit that it has become. It has created bonds, that forged in fire, are unbreakable.
So, my blog is not going to explain how to make the perfect sock turkey. I am not going to be able to teach anyone how to french braid or turn old clothing into beautiful new designer duds. I won't be posting pictures of my holiday table or teaching anyone how to feed a family of 10 for 3 dollars a serving. I am simply going to share my mess, in all of its painfully real glory, with you.
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