I wasn’t going to post today. I have been busy and “in the moment” (and by inthe moment I mean I spent the morning procrastinating that I have e to get the house ready for carpet cleaners tomorrow) but the Hubs is snoring before I finished setting the alarm so here’s a quickie! Being a working mom is hard! I have spent years trying to feel OK and reason with myself that being “just a mom” is quite enough! It is a full time job! Someone needs to be there to help the children when even they don’t know they need it, Right?! My stay at home mom brain says “yes it’s a mom’s job and privilege to rescue her babies”

Well, yes and no! Now that I am a working mom I have learned the value and joy and privilege of those moments of being there to pick up the pieces and fix i t all but also the value of the kids learning how to do it when mom’s not their to rescue them is very important as well! I would usually much rather be there for them but I do have to leave to go to work. I agonize over it. Leaving to go to work and be there in time is not putting your work ‘first’ it’s being responsible! I ask myself am I neglecting them, will they be in therapy because I wasn’t there? Can they handle it themselves? What DID they pack in their lunch boxes? And then setimea it comes from them today was when they told me that I needed to go grocery shopping…OK, I might have time Wednesday to do that….

Will any of those things kill them? No. But I want to be there packing their lunches and writing cute lunch notes that I saw on Pinterest (probably procrastinating something important that I only had 5 minutes to do so I was on Pinterest instead) and making invitations to their birthday parties and never missing their birthday lunch…. The list goes on and on, but I also want to the mortgage paid and eventually to get a house on the lake, have season tickets to the Seahawks and not have to remove the children from their activities that costs thousands of dollars either! I want to do it all. But I can’t! No one can!

Now, I know there are working moms who’ve mastered this better than me! I know I could use a time management lesson or two and multitasking and organizational skills, and leta not forget my procrastination gene, but I also know that really, I’m doing pretty damn good! Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Examples are my kids can get themselves ready for school by themselves, they can pack their lunches and have figured out if they screw it up they pay for it in the way they feel. They know (better than I) obviously when to go grocery shopping (can’t wait to give them that chore) and they are learning they can buy me off by doing the dishes and other chores (yes that’s a parenting win!). The Boy doesn’t like to have to go to work with me or having tonhang out with Grandma sometimes, it’s boring. He knows if he does the dishes and the chores I set out for him, he gets to stay at home by himself! They also know when the chore list is too long that it’s time to go be bored at Grandma’s or that they have a great book to read during my evening massages. (I ain’t raising no fools here!)

What I want to say in this blog is that your worth as a mom and/or wife is not defined by the cleanliness of you house, or you perfect make up and clothes or by your salary or your husband’s. You are not defined with how put together your kids are or if their socks match, or even if their pillow case matches their sheets or even if they turn in their homework, it doesn’t make you a bad mom! You worth is defined by you and you alone! Not your husband (he will always want the house cleaner or more sex) Not your children (they will always want you to come to see them at school when you have an important meeting but that time you take off work for a field trip they won’t want to be in your group.) You’re not defined by your parents (don’t get me started) just as your chikdren will not be defined by you! Definitely not by your work (they can say how much they want to pay you but that does not equal your worth) And let’s not forget the scale, it is gravity and who the fuck cares about numbers anyway! (I know we all do but I had to include this, we all do it. Take care of yourself and be healthy and exercise, but don’t be stuck on the number!)

Your worth is defined by you! What’s important to you? Is that where you are putting your energy? If not, make changes! If it is important for you to see your kids grow, take the time off for the school play that they have only one line in, take the day of the field trip off and chaperone. If it is important for you to pay bills…do whatever you have to to get a good job and keep it. If it is important to give your kids a kiss at night, change your schedule at work so you are home by bedtime!

But by all means DO NOT DEFINE YOURSELF BY THE FAILURES YOU MAKE EVERYDAY! You will have a lot of mom fails, like when your kids tell you the household needs groceries and you don’t have time in your schedule for two days. Or the time you got spit up all over your new blouse the day of a presentation to your boss, or when you have to make a mad dash into every room when the carpet cleaners come because you didn’t have time tobget everything picked up! We will have plenty of failures and we will survive, our kids will survive (by the grace of God and alcohol hand wipes) and our husbands will brag to his about what a “bad ass my wife is because she did_______” (which you will have to remind him you heard him brag about it the next time he tells you you need to do it better).

So stop worrying, the simple fact that we worry about it probably means we are good enough and sometimes….Good enough=Supermom!

So wether you are a stay at home mom or a working mom, you got this!!! Define ourselves by being present in Motherhood. Be it with a screaming baby that needs walked up and down the hall at night or the teenage kid out on a date that we are waiting up for knowing they will be home 1 minute before curfew and we have to get up to go in early in the morning… Mom’s, we got this!

#Recommit2016