One of the first things
I learned about parenting is that any attempt to stay clean is futile.
I remember returning
from the grocery store one day to discover spaghetti sauce smeared on the front
of my white shirt. Upon further
investigation, I also found jam and peanut butter handprints on my back!
In that moment I
realized that I really am a mom! Up to that point I had felt like I was
still the same me, with a kid tagging along, but now I realized I am a mom with
everything that title brings—messy handprints included.
Sometimes motherhood is so wonderful; I have times that I try to sit back and soak up all the joy of the moment. Sometimes motherhood is comical, hearing a witty response from my three year old that makes me chuckle. Sometimes it feels like a race, trying to get all the errands run before my kids fall apart because it is too near nap time. Sometimes motherhood is frustrating, my kids aren't cooperating and I feel at a loss for parenting skills. Sometimes I feel at my wit’s end, because kids have been waking up in the night, and now all I need is a nap, but my kids won't settle down. Sometimes it is just messy, as my kids dump, smear, and manage to get into everything they shouldn't.
I used to have this vision of myself as a mom: Always put together, and things in order. Smiling, playing and having fun with my kids. Never ruffled. Scheduled. Kids always clean, their hair done, always happy.
But that is not what motherhood is about. Motherhood is all encompassing--the good and the bad; the messes and the baths, the happy giggles and the tears, joy and frustration, time outs and lots of love.
I have stopped, or rather, I am trying to stop viewing myself against the backdrop of my vision of a perfect mother, because it is not real or attainable. I'm learning how to be a good mother, but I mess up a lot, and that's okay!
Motherhood is messy. It’s unpredictable. It’s finding piles of candy wrappers around the house and not being able to find the source. It’s days of getting out of the shower to find the garbage can has been dumped out again.
Motherhood is full of surprises. But that is also what makes life so much fun! The trick is remembering to laugh. It’s finding those precious moments in the midst of the mayhem: the ear-to-ear grin, as my child looks down at the new pile of flour dumped on the floor and proudly exclaims, "Hey Mom! Look at this MOUNTAIN!"
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| Lil' M, using her hummus to paint her feet, legs, and pants |
This quote from Marjorie Pay Hinckley about sums it up:
“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”
Published by: McKell
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