ah, in this picture we look so neat and tidy. all my little j’s–jared, jamison, josh, jose (who helped create these beautiful babes), julia, and jonas. so squared away. so on top of life. looks can be deceiving. don’t for a minute think that a 10 second snapshot captures reality. just take one step into my house unannounced. ask my kids. ask jose. ask my friends from the refuge. pictures lie. i love our life. i am happy. yes, i wish i had someone who could help me clean and cook. yes, i wish i were more organized and the time between 8 and 3 didn’t elapse quite so quickly. but my reality is that none of that is going to happen anytime soon. and what i find when i talk to other moms is that a pervasive feeling seems to exist, a feeling that we’re never quite good enough. good mommies play on the floor with their kids all day long, do artsy crafts, make amazingly healthy and balanced meals, and keep everyone’s world spinning ’round. it’s way too much pressure and the end result is that lots of mommies are left with way too much guilt & shame.
so my contribution to the world is to make mommies everywhere feel a little better.
when you’re feeling low, like a loser mom, just take a list at these 10 true and yes, humiliating, things about me that hopefully will make you feel a little better. trust me, these are just 10 of 100 at the tip of my tongue. i shared these this weekend at a women’s retreat i facilitated at my dear friend elaine’s church in san diego. i had a few women ask me for a copy so they could show their husbands and they could get off the hook. yes, you can now officially feel better about yourselves and i can feel worse…
top 10 humiliating things about me that will make you mommies out there feel better…
10. i often try to cut down the 30 second lullaby i sing to the twins to 10 seconds because 30 seconds seems like too long.
9. every fast food restaurant in town is represented on the floor of my suburban
8. in most families, eating cereal is a treat for dinner. at my house, my kids are like “please, mommy, not cereal again!”
7. one of the twins ears got so dirty that the only way i could really get it clean was to use mary kay eye makeup remover!
6. i went to the extra fridge to make room for the leftovers from easter and discovered that the christmas leftovers were still in there!
5. my father in law (a reminder, jose’s hispanic and an only child!) asked me “kathy, are noodles the only thing you know how to cook?
4. a while back i accumulated $90 in overdue library book fines (that went over well with jose. even just a few days ago he went to the library and asked “now how much am i going to have to pay before i check something out this time?”)
3. when people come to my house for thanksgiving and christmas sometimes they bring their own cooking utensils.
2. not once, not twice, but three times we have left one of the twins in the car, gone all the way into our location, been at the party, been in church, before we realized we forgot him.
1. i once went, no lie, 6 months without vacuuming my house (i swear, it didn’t look as bad as it sounds and it was before we had dogs!)
hope you feel a little better. life’s too short. the one thing i’m learning the most right now is to worry less about stuff like this and care more about loving, laughing, and not taking myself so serious.