The Things That I Will Never Be

Whenever I was pregnant, I dreamed through my entire pregnancy of all the things that I would be once that little baby growing inside of me was placed in my waiting arms. I of course feared giving birth, having never experienced that before, but mostly that fear was replaced with joy whenever I reflected on my life to come.

Now, here I am 6 years later, and I’m noticing a cycle within myself – the recurring times when I focus more on the things that I will never be. Gone are the days of hopes and dreams in motherhood, but very real are the moments of comparison and wishing.

I will never be the crafty mom. A couple of weeks ago, Chris had a drill weekend (you can read a little bit more about what that is here), so Branden and I planned something to do, just the two of us. All he wanted to do was make dirt, as he found the recipe in a children’s cookbook that we have. I knew that I could handle this, and I ran around on Friday getting all the ingredients, and we made the dirt on Saturday. It actually turned out pretty good, and he was happy. But, all I thought about the entire time was how it wasn’t as pretty as the dirt I looked up on Pinterest.

I will never be the mom who makes dinner from scratch every night. I try and do my best, but at least once a week I’m picking up the phone to order food because I’m too tired to pull it all together. I go through phases where I really get excited about cooking, and others where I have completely run out of ideas and am beyond uninspired when I set foot in my kitchen. So I try to tell myself – at least I’m not storing shoes in my oven  like Carrie Bradshaw, right?

I will never be the  mom whose home is always spotless. Like I mentioned in Monday’s post, I finally broke down and hired a cleaning company to come and do some cleaning in our apartment today. Though I do typically take care of this on my own, I can’t help but sometimes let things go. I let the dust build, and then I do a major deep cleaning that takes all day. If my mom lived close by, she would probably visit and be deeply tempted to swipe her finger on my furniture to “dust shame” me.

The point that I’m trying to make is this, we all have things that we will never be or wish that we were, but just can’t quite get our shit together to be those people. My home is always organized (though dusty), our bills are always paid, my boys will always have bellies filled with food, permission slips are always turned in on time. I always take time for these things that matter most, and we will always have fun activities planned for the weekend because I took the time to make that happen. I’m not perfect in my own eyes, but in their eyes I am, and that’s all that matters.

We need to remind ourselves of this. We’re not crappy moms, we’re doing amazing things each day to make sure we don’t overlook anything important and put everyone else first. We all have our strong points and things that other mothers look to us for inspiration for in their lives, and having confidence in that fact can sometimes be the real challenge.

Do you focus on the things you will never be, like me? Being a mom is tough and we put so much pressure on ourselves to reach the unattainable perfection that never actually exists. Perfect with love, is what I say! Wanna share in on some extra Mama venting moments? Become a Project Motherhood Insider (for FREE!) and you will get a weekly dose of Mama drama!

Fashionably Yours,

Allison