Moms - How do You See Yourself?

Scary thought, I know. To tell you the truth, I probably don't want to know half the time how people see me or how I see myself!! But I wonder this sometimes...

How do you see me? How do you see me as a mother?

How do you see yourself? As a mother? How do you see others?

No, this isn't a "Mommy Wars" blog about breast feeding or not. Cloth diapering or not, I don't care. The first two years of your kids' lives is about survival through and through. Who cares if that means you give them a boob or a bottle? You want to launder all your kids poo off? Go ahead! Good for you! We need to stop judging other moms and focus on the more important things...like keeping our kid from taking their diapers off and using their poo to finger paint their rooms into a funk-smelling horror movie.

I think pinterest, blogs, and facebook have upped the already-ridiculous "mommy bar". They can be fabulous places for information, support, ideas, and love from your peeps, if you let it be. It can also be extremely detrimental for some people. It was for me. I mean half the stuff I saw on pinterest and facebook or wherever there were projects were just not possible for me and for my kids. Plus, frankly, my kids didn't really give a darn. Let's be real, two hours of prep, and four hours of clean up, for two minutes of play is not my idea of a good time. It still made me feel like crap every single time though that I wasn't doing half that stuff.

You see, we as parents...okay I'm just going to throw it out there and say it's probably mainly us moms...we moms like to compare ourselves with other moms. It's natural, but with facebook, blogging, and pinterest...well I think we are coming up with this fictional character that is "MOM". But by just looking on social sites, well it's not who we really are, we are only showing you what we want - the good stuff.

For example: I'm not going to tell you that my youngest kid was laying on the floor last month at daycare trying to look up little girl's skirts. I'm not going to tell you that weekend he then lifted MY dress up in the middle of Gap so the whole world could see the saggy crater that is my behind. I'm not going to tell you that I flipped a lid and all but sent the little perve to juvie. Nope. Not going to blog on that.

For everyone without boys here, don't flip a lid like I did. I was since told it was totally normal. Lots of boys go through that stage, and he has not done it since. Don't lock up the little perves yet...turns out it just confirms once again how boys are just weird.

I'm not going to post on the days that I physically had to walk away from my children as they were throwing things in their room and laying down one major hissy fit due to the fact that I would not let them watch Ninja Turtles at 10pm.

I'm not going to post a picture of that less-than-average school project that was done 10 minutes before running out the door because we had all...forgotten.

I'm not posting a picture of all four of us one evening, on the couch...one watching TMNT, one playing angry birds, and Brewerman and I staring in to the air as we detox from a crazy day.

I'm not posting a picture of the meal that I gave my kids last night that consisted of pre-made popcorn chicken, ketchup, crackers, and Cheetos.

I'm also not going to post about the fact that it's what Lil'Dude had for lunch today too. No cute cutouts for him.

I'm not going to reblog and tell you that 80% of the meals in mylast meal planning post were not made due to laziness, life, and the fact I had no dishwasher for a week and I am not hand washing all that crap!

I'm not posting about the project that I decided to do with the kids, that ended in my yelling, both boys in time out, broken crayon bits everywhere, and marker in my dog's hair.

I don't use the term "non-organic" for every little item that I eat that is not organic....even though for some strange reason us moms feel a need for it to be a qualifying term for every single piece of food we post about that is, in fact, organic.

You aren't going to see a blog about how at the pool, I told my oldest it was time to leave, he refused and just stared me down. I told him I was leaving anyway with or without him. He continued sitting in the pool staring, daring me with his eyes, so...without acknowledging him at all...I left without him. (Okay, so my friend was right there with him. But he still completely flipped out, very much to my delight.) Alright - so that I'm actually proud of.

I'm not going to post about the birthday presents that were wrapped in christmas paper because I ran out (no I didn't...that's a lie...I forgot to buy wrapping paper) and then wrote "from mom and dad" with a sharpie.

I'm not going to post that I went into my kids room the other night one hour post-bedtime after they had been up five times already, turned on the light, started going off about it being the LAST TIME I WAS COMING IN HERE then realized they had both been asleep and the noise I heard was the dogs.

The internet can give us this crazy perception of what being a mom is and who we are supposed to be. Pinterest can be cool, but don't let it be your standard. Take an idea and do one...per week. ONE. Don't do daily stuff, it's just not going to happen and you are going to feel guilty when you end up giving your kid two grapes and limp celery that probably should have been thrown out and tell him to make faces on his plate for snack time while you have a margarita and envision yourself as being clean. Some weeks you will rock it OUT. You will do more projects and they will end up being a high fives and memories galore. Then some weeks you'll do one single project, you will get one cute picture and it will last 3 minutes, then spend two hours cleaning up the darn thing. But of course, still post that sh*t on facebook.

Even when we suck as parents, we are teaching our kids...yes, even by walking away from them, we are teaching them. I am showing them that sometimes we get angry, and this is what we are supposed to do. Even when I lose my temper (another non-blog-post), I come back and say I'm sorry when I need to. When I am sick of trying so hard and go to the park? Well, they need down time too. Go do a playdate that is really just for mommy to complain to her other mommy friend. Do projects that fail big time, but show them that at least you try new things.

We really need to stop comparing ourselves to this fictional version of MOM. The queen of pinterest and facebook. She doesn't exist. We all rock at some stuff, and extrememly stink at others. We need to just STOP. The mommy war crap is exhausting. Aren't you exhausted? I know I sure am.

Stop holding yourself on a never-going-to-be-reached pedastel. Being a mom is hard enough. We are all great moms, just doing what we think is best. We all rock and we all suck. We are all blessed and we are all exhausted. If you look at another person and think they rock at their life, do what I do, imagine them on the toilet.

 I mean come on, the toilet just brings everyone down to the same playing field.

You might have curled hair, a white shirt, a clean car, and fourteen projects from pinterest that your kids did on your fridge...but for those sweet 3 minutes in my imaginiation...we are the same....because no one looks sexy on the toilet.