Last week I was sitting at lunch and chatting with a few of my friends from work. We were talking about Hazeline’s birthday and something that Greenleigh had done (have no idea what it was as I sit here typing today), when the girl across the table said, “You’re such a natural at this.” A little confused as to what she meant, I inquired further and she said, “Being a mom. You just don’t let anything bother you and you never yell or raise your voice. You are just so calm.” Pffft. This came just days after my husband had compared me to a sheriff’s officer making a drug stop when instructing Greenleigh to put down a full container of lemonade that she had removed from the refrigerator. While most of the parents would probably find this as an accomplishment and praise their child for working towards more independence in getting their own beverages, all I saw was lemonade spilling and days of my feet sticking to the floor. I was across the room with Hazeline when I saw her and yelled at the top of my lungs, “Down on the ground! Put it down on the ground now!”. Because just talking to Greenleigh has very little effect. Unfortunately. If I could use a megaphone in my house without my neighbors hating me, I probably would.
Me? A natural? I don’t think so.
Parenting is hard for me. None of it comes naturally. In fact, this blog is dedicated to how hard I find parenting. When Greenleigh was just born and we were in the hospital awaiting discharge, I remember talking to my mom about how I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to handle this new little being in our house. It was then and there that I proclaimed, “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m going to try my best.” And for the most part, that’s how I’ve tackled motherhood. But even with that attitude, there are times when I fall short. Very short. While there are tons of moments where I’m filled with pride and joy, there are so many others where I am filled with frustration. And while I have worked hard to achieve balance when taking care of my self and my kids, I find it hard to find balance when factoring kids into other aspects of my life – my home, my job, my relationship with Erajh.
It’s already established that I have little ability to juggle taking care of kids and keeping my household presentable. Even with the help of a cleaning lady, my house gets “call the health department” scary. My dishes sit in the sink for up to 2 days before I load them in the dishwasher. They might sit longer, but I don’t have enough bottles to go any longer than that. I am regularly 4-5 loads of laundry behind, and although I have the best intentions of just getting it all done at once, I often run out of time and just pick out the things that I need and run 1 load of essential, everyday items instead of all the laundry. I have watched “Hoarders” to get motivated to clean my house. Sad, but true. And it is wonderful motivation, if you’re ever needing some.
When you throw work into the mix, things only get harder. There are days when I sit at my desk, struggling to keep focus because my kids didn’t feel like sleeping the night before. Like last night, when Hazeline lost her mind at 3am to the point where she would only sleep in our bed. And when she sleeps in our bed, she insists on sleeping diagonally, with her feet being nestled snug in my rib cage. How is a girl supposed to focus after zero hours of restful sleep? At least I’m not Erajh, who she insists on headbutting every 30 minutes in an attempt to take over his pillow. Co-sleeping is not for us, but right now a little sleep is better than hearing her cry for hours on end.
And despite the fact that I try to keep my relationship with Erajh on the front burner, I often get busy and it falls in my list of priorities. Between his new business and my job, we have a lot going on. At the end of the week, we would much rather stay home and do nothing at all than have a date night. And in the rare instance where we have a sitter lined up, one of us is normally pushing themselves to actually leave the house, because we’d rather stay home and take a nap. Super romantic, I know.
As we were sitting there at lunch, I opened my mouth to protest this notion that I’m a natural by summarizing all of the above. I was determined to tell them how it really was. I got about 2 sentences out before deciding that maybe I should just bite my tongue. I may be far from a natural, but who am I to kill the image that they have? At least someone thinks I have it altogether.
Hi! Popping in from the blog hop! I agree-sometimes you just have to keep quiet and let people have a good image of you even if you yourself don’t think you have it all together! Why put yourself down when other people think you are doing great!