Embracing the Mess

Let's be real here. Being a mom is hard. End of story, well not a good end of story, but the statement stands alone and every mom that reads it rolls her eyes and says "Tell me something I don't know!" So here it is, something mama's don't know. They say it, they preach it, they tell it to each other but knowing means allowing yourself to internalize it and accept it as part of your story, your song, your being:
You are amazing, invaluable, and a gift to your children.

I say this like this is something that I have some tangible knowledge of but I type it for me as much as for the rest of you.

We WILL make mistakes, things WILL go wrong, you will have that freak out moment that leaves your children staring at the crazy lady who just took over their mama's body, and you wanna know why? Because we are HUMAN!
Also because if we set an impossible standard for our children we would just be setting them up for failure and grief later in life because...

They are HUMAN too!
Which is why they are so hard to live with at times.

Teaching your children how to survive being around people and how to deal with, apologize to, and forgive in a fallen world is such a great part of why you are here.

Your mistakes are not always a scar on their little psyche, a crushing of their spirit, or an unforgivable blight, it is an opportunity to teach compassion for those in leadership roles, to model empathy, sympathy, and above all humility and forgiveness.

These are the things that we remember about those who brought us up, those who we loved and admired.
In order to love, we as humans must gloss over these rough patches, taking in the whole, seeing the love, embracing compassion, and seeking to be best of what we see in others.

The inner eye is much harsher, prone to magnifying faults, but if we were to look at ourselves through the same eyes that we look at our loved ones, taking a moment to accept that beautiful picture, we would see an entirely different person.
One bathed in forgiveness, grace, and redemption, and, perhaps, there we would catch a glimmer of understanding, a minute trace of comprehension, of what our children see when they look at us with such adoration...

because we are their mothers, mommys, moms, mamas... 

...however you say it, whatever language, no matter your age, it has a beautiful meaning all its own.

Wear the name proudly, mamas, and seek the joy in every messy, disastrous moment of it.

You are amazing.

If Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness I'm In Trouble

I decided that I needed a bath.

My smallest had thrown up some the night before, so far it had not seemed to be contagious, something just didn't sit right, but it meant a long night of light sleep waiting to hear the sounds of upchucking from my sons room. So it's no surprise that I woke up with an achy back, sinus congestion, and a touch of asthma. 

"A bath will solve my problems." I thought forgetting I had kids. 

My youngest came in as soon as he heard the water. At first we were just playing tag with the rubber ducky. I would set it on the side of the tub and my one year old would toss it back in. Not exactly relaxing but manageable.

Then he found my phone and started to bring that to me in the tub. Thank goodness I saw that coming was able to head him off before he got within tossing distance. Once that was taken away and tucked out of sight behind a towel he lost interest and wandered off for a moment.

Ahhh... relaxation.

He wandered back in and looked around, presumable for something else to throw in the tub. Suddenly I saw his eyes lock on something, where there should be nothing of interest, and light up just a bit. This got my attention. On the bathroom floor is bad enough, but pointed interest in something small on the bathroom floor never ends in a happy place. He bent down and picked up the something off the floor as I lunged to try to confiscate whatever it was. He got there first and held up his prize.

I was horrified! 

It was a chunk of craisin... 

on the bathroom floor... 

that had fallen off of him...

as I stripped his PUKED ON clothes off the night before!

I had tried to keep it all contained, I had checked and double checked but this gruesome nugget of a dried cranberry had gumption. It had come back whole, rolled away from the gooey massacre of its companions and laid in wait to tempt my toddler.

I lunged for the baby again but he carefully danced back just out of reach with a huge grin in his face throw up berry in his hand. I watched him for a moment trying to decide if a sudden movement would result in him dropping it or if I should go to a "let me see what you got" in a sweet voice and hold out my hand. Before I had reached a conclusion he looked at the craisin and...

...popped it in his MOUTH
in one quick movement that left me no time for more than a horrified gasp.

I just stared for a moment...

Then with a giggle, while chewing, he ran out of the bathroom.

"Run away! Bwahaha!" 

I sat there stunned, dangling over the edge of the tub, not quite gagging, mentally vacillating between dumbfounded blanks of pure disbelief, and an occasional bout of trying to convince myself that this child was not going to throw up at any moment.

While I was pondering these beautiful thoughts my darling little prince wandered in again, looked at me, still chewing, giggled, as before, did a little happy dance hop thing as I lunged, the absurd thought in my head was to try to dig this horror out of his mouth, and took off again.

This time I got out of the tub, dried off, my mind and stomach still reeling, trying to mentally brace myself for... for I don't know what.

As I wrapped up my hair this crazy child once again wandered in.

He held out his hand.

Into my hand he carefully scraped the mushed up skin of a well chewed craisin, giggled, smiled proudly at me and took off seemingly completely unaware of the look of disgust that had etched itself indelibly across his poor mother's face.

As I stared at this reddish smear on my once clean palm only one coherent thought emerges: "I think I need another bath".

The same grin he gave my during
my fruitless attempts... pun intended.